By Rob Wade
We took a very late decision to snap up two tickets for Wigan, before worrying all the way to the ground that we were pushing our luck!
Three wins in the space of eight days? Two away wins in the space of four days? That would be unheard of for us, yet we’d played so well at Port Vale, maybe just maybe!
It started pretty well but from their first chance, Wigan scored and to be honest we rarely threatened after that. Wigan were nothing special. In fact, I’d more or less agree with Graham Alexander that 0-0 would have been a fair score. But they nullified us in attack, and they took their chances – so they deserved to edge it.
I’m not going to write at length, but just a few observations in this late report.
1. City didn’t play bad. This was no Wimbledon display. We stuck to it, tried hard but it just didn’t happen. The pitch didn’t help – in fact it was atrocious – far worse than ours, but it was the same for both sides. We just couldn’t impose ourselves. Part of that is undoubtedly how they marked Neufville and even more so Wright out of the game.
2. Sam Walker. I saw comments that Walker misjudged the first, thinking it was going wide. The facts are he dived full length and got finger tips to it. Also that he should have saved the second. That was just a quality bit of striking, he hit it early before Walker was set, no blame attached. Give Taylor some credit (through gritted teeth like me). There were others to blame for that goal. Please save the criticism for a howler, which he will have again – they all do!
3. There seems to be a narrative amongst supporters that when we win, we should go completely overboard and think we can beat everyone and equally when we lose it’s the end of the world and we played badly. There seems to be no in between. Maybe it’s the excitement!
By the same token because we beat someone it doesn’t make them the worst team in the league. Our Orient win was demeaned by many as against a woeful side – not the case as their last two performances prove. I heard some Wigan fans say the same about us – again not the case. Fine margins they say – and so many games are decided by them.
4. I was disappointed at the end of the game. It was a real downer after the Port Vale game. It was just overall a poor game, never mind the result. However, I have to take exception to those fans (and there were a good number of them) booing the players. Some gestures also to go forth and multiply.
Seriously? Remember who you were booing there – the likes of Jenson Metcalfe, Bobby Pointon, Antoni Sarcevic to name but three, not to mention Alexander and Chris Lucketti – give your heads a good shake. I know it’s disappointing but honestly, it just smacked of serious entitlement.
We have a side that only 14 months ago were mid-table League Two and now they are favourites for play-offs to get to the Championship. They are not going to play well every week, they are not going to win every game.
Support is for the bad days too, and don’t we as City fans know enough about those!
Whatever the remaining games bring, this season has been a success. I think we can secure those playoffs and then to be honest it’s just on the day. Who knows, but they’ve entertained me this season and I’ll take that.
Categories: Match Reviews
Related Articles
-
Another brilliant night in a brilliant season pushes Alexander towards the Great(est)
-
Courage beats refereeing incompetence as Bradford City dig deep for big win
-
Bradford City’s late self implosion yields another away day loss
-
Practicality vs superficiality as Bradford City start carrying the Ming Vase
widthofapost.com 
Special thanks to Rob for stepping in with this report. My emails have stopped working so I can’t email him to thank him!
Couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve said, great article. I think the Port Vale game would have taken a lot out of them. Running on a beach for 90 minutes would take a lot out of the legs. I didn’t think City played poor, I thought they looked like a strong L1 side who controlled the ball, however just lacked that cutting to edge to create a guilt edged chance.
I was ashamed at the booing. The entitlement at times, and it’s a running trend across a lot of football clubs, is shameful. There are two sides in a game and Wigan are fighting for their lives. They got infront and took all the sting out of the game through time-wasting/game management whatever you call it.
We go again Tuesday! This team have been fantastic all season and they have given us no reason to believe that they won’t bounce back from this result. Gosh, they’ve only lost consecutive games this season once. They know how to bounce back after disappointment.
lts obviously that we can’t play all of the players all of the time but imagine what some fans would have said if we had lost to Wigan with a team greatly changed from the PV win. PV were knackered, we were rightly all over them. Maybe with the benefit of hindsight this was an opportunity to rest Sarc or Pointon or Metcalf etc. I am certain lots thought will go into having our best 11 available and freshish for the playoffs but won’t be easy.
Great article.
And yes the booing is pathetic given where we are in the League 1 table.
Not much you can say about the Wigan game. The less said the better hopefully we’ll learn off our mistakes? Just feel sorry for the fantastic fans that travelled to support the lads. They tried their best, they’ve had an off day. Can’t win them all they’ve won most this season look at our position?! Move on to the next game Mansfield at home. Pick yourself up, shake yourself down and bounce back! They need our full support even more now at this stage of the season! Up the Bantams!!
I too was disappointed at the final whistle on Saturday but i was surprised about the booing from some of our fans, people have short memories
Think Wigan did a good job on us to be fair and I don’t think there was any shortage of effort from the City players
let’s just keep rolling on, stay behind the lads and look forward to them play offs in May!