By Adam Raj

Well it’s a second successive week where Bradford City have been the masters of their own downfall.

For 68 minutes of this contest, nothing happened. And in a way that is part of the problem from a City perspective. City played some decent football in the middle third of the pitch and showed some nice approach play at times, but in the final third? Nothing. A flurry of long range efforts from Max Power and Jenson Metcalfe were as close as City had come to producing an effort on target, nevermind a goal.

That was until Matt Pennington decided to take matters into his own hands. Bobby Pointon’s cross was only half cleared by Randell Williams to the edge of box where Pennington set himself before launching a rocket into the top corner for his second goal in a few days.

City were comfortable, maybe too comfortable. Reading offered nothing prior to going a goal down and nothing in the immediate aftermath. Leam Richardson’s triple change a minute after the opener was greeted by boos from the home fans who were not happy with what they were watching.

City had this game by the throat, but they did nothing about it. They allowed the game to meander just as it had done for the first 68 minutes. No shots on target, no real chances created. A spluttering of good football with no end product. They left the door open and Reading seized the opportunity.

Pennington, despite having a very good game will look back on the first goal with regret. His clearing header was more up than away as he misjudged the flight of the cross, which allowed Paddy Lane to drill home the volley in the 90th minute. 1-1.

Five minutes later and City had somehow conspired to lose this game. Charlie Savage was afforded too much time to swing a cross in from the left flank and Matt Ritchie was on hand to overpower Ibou Touray at the back post and head past Sam Walker.

Stephen Humphrys still had time to have an effort cleared off the line but it was too little too late.

Ultimately, it’s a fifth straight league defeat for the Bantams. And whilst performance wise, this was a significant improvement on the previous horror shows, City are still not doing anywhere near enough to pick up points on the road.

Defensively, City were excellent for the most part. The back three won’t have a more comfortable afternoon than they did here, partly down to a very poor Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan up front for the hosts. But the attacking third of the pitch was a problem throughout.

City never really looked like scoring themselves. And when they went a goal ahead, there was no sense of ambition to try to get another. It was all very much what we have we’ll hold, illustrated by the substitution of Pointon for Joe Wright in the closing stages.

That substitution backfired and you could argue there was no real need to make it. City weren’t under any pressure whatsoever, Reading were still playing the game in their own half and getting nowhere near the City goal. The back three already had to be disrupted by Aden Baldwin’s injury, so introducing a second new player into the mix from the staring team probably wasn’t the best idea.

Nevertheless, none of the goals were Joe Wright’s fault and this situation wouldn’t have happened if City were capable of scoring more than one goal in a game.

In the 25 league and cup games since Barnsley at home in October, City have managed to score more than one goal in a game on only four occasions. To put it another way, on 21 occasions, City have either registered one goal or zero goals. That’s pretty terrible no matter how you look at it.

At home, where City very rarely concede we’ve managed to see out five 1-0 home victories in that period. But away from home, we naturally concede more chances and since the turn of the year, concede a lot of goals on our travels.

When we concede first we’re done. We don’t have two goals in us and the stats prove it. That puts an awful lot of pressure on scoring the first goal and as this game showed, if you don’t kill a game off with a second goal you’re vulnerable to falling flat on your face.

That is a far cry from the early months of the season where City were top scorers, had the highest xG and most big chances created. Now they are comfortably the lowest scorers in the top six and create very little. And in a day where the three sides above them all either scored four or five goals each, you do fear their chronic lack of goals will cost them.

The gap to Reading who sit in 8th in the 89th minute was 13 points. It is now only 7. That was the significance of those two late goals. A 13 point cushion inside the playoffs would’ve been very welcome but now the room for error is much less. The away form continues to disappoint and psychologically that run cannot go on. If City finish inside the playoffs, one leg will be away and the final at Wembley. That’s two games away from Valley Parade that they would need some form of result in.

At the minute, they can’t even muster a point when they step outside of Bradford. Alexander needs to fix it and quickly.

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: 2025/26, BCAFC, League One, Reading