Written by Dom Calhowie (images by John Dewhirst)

Bradford City’s single goal win against Rotherham United at Valley Parade left you in no uncertainty that the Bantams have recognised the gravity of the task before them as they look to secure a play-off place. And that was in marked contrast to the frivolousness of the visitors who struggle at the foot of the table.

More so, perhaps, than any Bradford City manager before him, Graham Alexander has a clear target for his team to finish in the top six of League One, and the sine qua non of that target is to win the remaining seven games available at Valley Parade, starting here.

So the Bantams started the process of carrying seven Ming Vases over seven slippy floors with a mature and serious performance.

Bursting

Matthew Pennington scored the decisive goal in the game after ten minutes, pushing any number of visiting defenders out of the way to head a cross into the goal which came after quick thinking on the left-hand side by Bobby Pointon and Tyreik Wright following one of many small but significant fouls the visitors seemed happy to concede.

Bursting through the crowd of defenders, Pennington’s goal was reward for City’s strong start, which also saw Kayden Jackson enterprising before his withdrawal after being on the wrong end of a strong tackle. City mustered fourteen shots at goal, three on target, and drifted back into a game management, the Ming Vase held securely for eighty minutes.

Jenson Metcalfe, impressive again, tested the visiting goalkeeper and the post. Ethan Wheatley came on and went off and looked effective in doing what Alexander wants from him, from Jackson, and from later sub Stephen Humphrys, which is to work the ball in the final third, rather than to try to be in a position to score.

This is Alexander’s serious approach to game management, to winning football matches, and it is working.

Pressing

By contrast, Rotherham United seemed blissfully unaware of their position second bottom of the League One table, and treated the threat of relegation as something of a triviality. If Alexander has a clear view of what is important that City do, Matt Hamshaw in the Rotherham dug-out deals in irrelevances.

As synecdoche, watching the Rotherham keeper Ted Cann hover on the ball to try to tempt a City player into a press, which would, one imagines, trigger a series of passing moves through the Bantams midfield is watching an underestimation of how disciplined the home side’s forward line were, and how well drilled they are in only pressing when triggered.

Cann tried again and again, and perhaps in training it is a practical approach, but in the reality of Valley Parade at the end of Winter it showed a lack of seriousness. A kind of stunt rehearsed play against a team far too focused on not dropping the vase, to drop the vase.

Little

This was true throughout the visitors’ approach. They played two men against Josh Neufville, snuffing him out, but had no real solution to the dearth of attacking players that left them going forward, or the asymmetrical and easily managed attack. They passed the ball, but not into dangerous positions, and City turned them away when they did.

The visitors edged possession 52% to 48% but not only did it not resolve to a shot on target all night. It never looked like they would do if it meant having to best Pennington, Curtis Tilt and Aden Baldwin – all three of whom were excellent.

Rotherham played like a team that had not realised that the season is going to finish soon and they are not doing especially well in it despite the fact that it looks to be good fun to play for them. You get the ball, you pass the ball, you get told you had acquitted yourself well in a 0-1 defeat where the other team’s goalkeeper does so little.

They probably don’t even have a Ming Vase.

Edge

All of which leaves City looking at the need to get to 80 points (ish) with six more home games and seven away. Winning the six home games would give them 76 points. Adding points on the road is more difficult.

The trip to Reading at the weekend continues City’s issues with playing in a way which suits Valley Parade and the narrowness of the home pitch, and that suffers away from home in the wider spaces of a bigger pitch. As Rotherham’s penning in of Josh Neufville illustrates, there is no solution to this that does not come with weakening the team elsewhere.

Adding Lee Evans to Max Power and putting Jenson Metcalfe into the attacking three has merits, but so does the idea that resting the main eleven away from home makes the necessary home victories more likely. Changing the playing system away from home is giving the Ming Vases to Evri.

Those concerns, though, come from City getting into a position of strength because of these nights and afternoons at Valley Parade, where another win seems inevitable, and the regularity of that should not make it monotonous.

Step by step, slowly, we edge across the slippy floor.

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2025/26, BCAFC, League One, Rotherham United