| Bradford City 2 |
| Swan 45+1, Baldwin 67 |
| Rochdale 0 |
Written by Jason McKeown (images John Dewhirst)
The blistering sunshine called for a relaxing afternoon, and Bradford City were happy to provide one. In a victory that was as comfortable as it was convincing, the Bantams eased through their season opener with scarcely a moment of concern.
It made for what might just be the most straightforward start to a season in the club’s long and varied history. City moved through the gears without ever needing to find top speed, scoring once in each half and steadily draining the belief out of a Rochdale side who had started brightly but ultimately fell apart.
There might easily have been more goals, but the lack of them barely mattered. This was dominance without drama, control without complication. A job completed with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of confidence, strengthening the feelgood factor around Valley Parade ahead of next week’s League One curtain-raiser.
Nothing was going to be fully proven here. But there was plenty of encouragement to take from the first competitive impressions of the new faces, and from the rejig of central midfield that grew in authority and importance over the 90 minutes.
Callum Connolly does not seem to have the same extroverted presence as the two predecessors to wear his number six shirt, Richie Smallwood and Max Power, but he quietly and competently sat in front of the back three and kept winning back possession to set up home attacks. He also cleared a Rochdale effort off the line and bagged an assist.
Connolly’s positional discipline gave Antoni Sarcevic licence to get forward, and by the second half the newly appointed City skipper was almost playing alongside wide forwards Will Swan and Kayden Jackson, to join the press.
And that was ultimately Rochdale’s downfall. Their new head coach, Ian Watson, used to be Mike Williamson’s assistant at Gateshead, MK Dons and Carlisle – and it showed. Like his flawed old boss, Watson likes his team to play out from the back, and they looked useful to a point. That point being every time they crossed the halfway line, where their slick passing was betrayed by a lightweight attack.
As soon as Sarcevic – who initially sat deep and looked a little awkward – pushed up to press Dale’s playing-it-out-from-the-back approach, the EFL returnees were in trouble and couldn’t cope. City initially had less of the ball but more territorial advantage. In the end, they had much more of both and they made it count. It will be interesting to watch from afar just how well Rochdale get on this season. They’ll certainly need to offer a lot more than the flashes of promise they showed here.
It all meant that City were pretty much in control throughout. Early chances came and went for Tyreik Wright, Jake Beesley and Jackson. Initially the Bantams were a little hesitant in possession, unsure of how to get attacks going and whether to play through midfield or rely on diagonals.
In a game where no City player was terrible, wing-backs Wright and Josh Neufville were quieter than usual standards. But with the hardworking Beesley holding up the ball well and Sarcevic routinely turning a front three into a front four, they got joy from going direct, winning first or second balls, and then pinning their opponents back.
The first reward came in first half stoppage time when Ethan Ebanks-Landell failed to spot Swan and played a backpass to his keeper, Nils Ramming, that the City wide forward was able to intercept and finish calmly. It was curious to see Swan in the starting line-up ahead of Bobby Pointon, with manager Graham Alexander stating afterwards that City’s homegrown hero hadn’t done anything wrong in pre-season, but that Swan’s form and goal return had given him the edge.
A further Swan goal here would appear to mean Pointon will start the league campaign on the bench. A sign of how high the standards up front are climbing.
The second goal came midway through the second half. Connolly showed real promise in his corner delivery and from one such set piece was able to find the head of Aden Baldwin, who easily nodded the ball into the far corner for his first-ever goal at Valley Parade. That was cue for Rochdale to disassemble into a bit of a mess of continually giving the ball away to City in the final third, leading to opportunities for Sarcevic and Pointon. Another sub, Nick Powell, was very unlucky not to celebrate re-signing for the Bantams with a goal, after he came close on four occasions. It was a really promising cameo from Powell, who was a handful.
But for all Rochdale’s struggle, their goal wasn’t breached any further, and they may have even made a game of it late on when sub Dajaune Brown was played through and Jon McCracken made a decent one-on-one save to deny the visitors.
It was one of only two efforts on target McCracken had to deal with him on his debut. He got the starting nod ahead of Sam Walker, with the latter seemingly on his way out of the club, with reported interest from Watford offering him the chance to move back down South and be nearer to his family. Alexander confirmed after the game there is a decision to make over Walker, and that he will spend the rest of the weekend mulling it over. It would be a sad development for Walker to leave like this, and potentially undermine the City boss’ pre-season aim of having two equally strong keepers competing for the number one spot.
Walker’s future will be a big talking point in the build-up to the first league game next week (plus that of Stephen Humphrys, who didn’t even make the bench here), but beyond this there was nothing to trouble new season optimism here. It’s true there remain question marks over whether a Connolly/Sarcevic midfield partnership will work against league opponents who flood the middle of the park and overcrowd them – any side that can beat the City press could have a lot of joy against this Bantams set-up. But the first glimpse here of the midfield plan was encouraging, and right now that’s as much as we can ask for.
So City march in to Round Two of the League Cup, looking in decent fettle. This largely felt like a hybrid of pre-season friendly and competitive cup tie, but Graham Alexander’s side could only beat what was put in front of them and they did so with impressive authority. Tougher examinations await, starting next Saturday against Peterborough. But when the high temperatures and limited nature of Rochdale’s threat called for calm rather than chaos, City delivered exactly that.
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On what I saw today, a team playing through midfield with a number of players playing close together will have a field day. Something has to be done to resolve the midfield area and prevent this.
Sounded like a competent performance from the new squad? My only worry as you say in the write up is the midfield? Connelly and Sercevic could be outdone with better opponents? Hope GA has got a plan B in place? But the future season looks promising starting next Saturday at home to Peterborough. Feeling optimistic that this squad has been strengthened and the new recruits can provide the start like last season? Up the Bantams! Bring it on….see you Saturday 👍
Devils advocate and premature observations – after a bright start I was surprised how bad Rochdale were. Every team we play from here should be significantly better. I liked the look of Beesley. Powell looked more likely to score than anyone when the game was fully stretched at the end. I’m worried about Sarc in that position. I don’t think Swan is good enough to keep Bobby out. We’re still not clinical enough when in good positions. The pitch looked bobbly, no criticism of ground staff given summer we’ve had. Jackson needs to show more than occasional glimpses of his higher level. Our main threat will again be Baldwins diagonals, that was obvious – apparently Gillesphey has those in his locker too. Connolly got better as game went on but looks a downgrade on Power. His corners were pretty good though. Neufville still looks like he’s gonna fall over every time he gets the ball but looked fit at least.
remember we were only playing a non league team from last year. The issue here is we haven’t replaced the Power and Metcalfe midfield where we sold both our skipper and the best midfielder in the league. Where City have not spent all of the money they have brought in. The question everyone should be saying is where has the remaining Metcalfe money gone? It’s disappeared to where?
GA’s explanation of playing Kayden deeper on the right made sense as it allows Neufville to burst forward for a through pass, rather carrying the ball and getting double man marked. It looked quite effective.
I liked the look of Connolly. He’s remarkably good with set pieces and adds steel to the midfield, rather like Eddie Youds did when playing in that position. (Jack Charlton favoured the idea of the physical presence in midfield with his Irish team, using Paul McGrath there to great effect.) I thought all the new lads look promising upgrades. Three or four more of that standard would complete the squad nicely. Finding them, however, will not be easy and I suppose we will use the loan market.
Thanks Jason! I thought Rochdale started well, & gave it a go & it was good to see them back in the League Cup again. First game, baking hot weather, new signings, all in all I think we looked very promising & deserved to get through although we looked a little soft at the back on occasions.
Further new signings will be ongoing I’m sure, & our midfield will be given more options if GA has anything to do with it. Still 3 weeks before the window closes, and alot of hard work will be going on to strengthen the team. Although personally I think we are looking pretty good at this stage in the proceedings. Every team will be in the same boat with transfer targets right now, but I feel really positive.
Nice start, clean sheet, no injuries, & safely through to Round 2 –
Up the Bantams 🙂
I don’t believe that the centre midfield paring that GA envisaged several weeks ago was the one he’s planning on starting with next week. I sense a hint of frustration in his and the club’s recent comments that the incomings aren’t quite what he’d hoped for.
Sparks said just days ago that a centre-midfield signing is a priority.
Clearly not all targets can be landed, however are some of these failed signings due to lack of finance in the pool he’d expect to be able to recruit.
Both Connelly and Sarce regularly miss chunks of game time due to injury. There’s young Cartwright, however he’s an unknown quantity and there’s no guarantee he’ll settle in as quickly as Metcalfe.
Of course, all may be well and my doubts may be unfounded. There’s little between the top and bottom of this division and I’d be so disappointed if we were to be more of a Leyton Orient this season after the tremendous previous showing.
We’re a strong starting line-up, but we’re not particularly lucky when it comes to injuries of pivotal players.
Whilst several signings look very promising, we’re not in a stronger position squad wise as last season. The club know this, hopefully there’s still enough talent available matching our budget to bolster it,
Unfortunately, reality is we’re to over-achieve somewhat to emulate 4th spot again. If we can match or exceed that I’ll be very surprised, and no doubt GA would cement himself into the upper echelons of City modest fall of fame.
Overall, the performance was a professional and minimal fuss type job.
2 goals, one in each half, could have been 3 or 4 nil with Powell hitting the post twice and another couple of efforts going close.
Rochdale started brightly but created little and from a poor mistake/good anticipation from Swan, found themselves 1-0 down going into HT. With Rochdale having to chase the game more, we created more and more chances in the second half, and consequently, played better.
My slight concern is that I believe Rochdale played through our middle with relative ease and got the ball into good areas out wide; against a good quality league 1 side we may get punished if our middle remains easy to go through. However, I have faith in GA and co to find a solution to this. I do like the idea of going back to a more traditional deep sitting midfielder and a midfielder who wants to get in the box. But, I worry about the legs of that midfield against fast paced teams. Of course, I appreciate we haven’t finished with our recruitment and we need to see how Cartwright develops; he may turn into an excellent box to box midfielder (he showed promising signs of this against Salford, especially for our second goal).
Was pleasing to see an ‘on the money’ corner delivery from Connolly, our Centre backs haven’t contributed the most goals over the last 2 years but imagine how many goals Baldwin, Tilt, Byrne, Pennington, Shepherd etc could have got if they’d had good corner takers. Not getting carried away, as only one game from Connolly, but it was an excellent delivery to give Baldwin an easy job.
Another pleasing moment was seeing us change our front 3 by bringing on Phillips, Pointon and Powell, we’ve improved the depth in that area with the Beesley and Phillips signings + Humphrys wasn’t even on the bench, if he stays we’ve got 7 good quality forward players.
I do wonder how teams will react to us this season? We did well to stay in the play offs but our form notably dipped from January onwards and I think this was in-part to teams becoming smarter to how we played. When we more of an unknown quantity in August and September, teams played into our hands. Now, of course, teams do scout reports and research on how we play but I imagine we were an unknown early into last season and teams trusted themselves to play out against us.