Lacklustre. Heartless. Embarrassing.
Just three words which come to mind when watching today's Bradford City side through cracked fingers.
The away dread which began at the New Meadow back in October continued but this week's comedy show was at the Peninsula stadium, where newly-promoted Salford City outworked a Bantams team who performed for about ten minutes and then seamlessly vanished for the remainder of the game.
The game reminded me very much of Oldham away at the beginning of February. With City packing out the away end, selling out with 1300 Bantams creating a powerful atmosphere to back the boys but unfortunately the performance lacked the same amount of commitment and passion which could be found in the faithful.
Salford's Ashley Hunter opened the scoring in the tenth minute when Bradford gave the on-loan Fleetwood attacker far too much time to rifle an impressive finish into O'Donnell's near post- which could and should have been stopped. To rub salt into the wounds Hunter then proposed to celebrate in front of the away fans and send them into aggro at his actions, and their player's humdrum attempt at defending.
Moving into the second half and McCall opted to replace a shocking Dylan Mottley-Henry performance with Glenn Middleton, who is still yet to really impress the Bantams fans. This change and his half-time influence appeared useless as the midfield once again disappeared and Hunter fired the Ammies two up with a replica goal to his first, driving from the half-way line into acres of unoccupied space before he finished once again past O'Donnell. Oh, and it should have been stopped.
Hunter absolutely ran the show alongside midfield veteran Darren Gibson. What is more hard to admit is the fact that Gibson, a man who has lacked any real football since his early Sunderland days, absolutely outran and dominated a midfield which should have been occupied by Jake Reeves and Callum Cooke but the two were constantly out of position or just jogging after the Salford midfield.
Another thing that baffled me was that City manager Stuart McCall changed his winning side who showed glimmers of hope against Plymouth Argyle last week, bringing Mottley-Henry, Jamie Devitt and Callum Cooke into the side for Shay McCartan, Hope Akpan and Clayton Donaldson. Mottley-Henry is a player who I feel is not good enough to wear the shirt, his decision making and end product is appalling, constantly either fluffing his chances or trying to take a man on when a clear through ball is available. And let's be honest how many City fans would back Mottley-Henry to score if he went one on one against a goalkeeper.
Simple enough, the second both Salford goals went in the Bradford heads dropped and never truly recovered. A factor which should not be existing for a club that would be challenging for the play-offs, as every single attack which came in City's direction from the Ammies made the away fans wince due to the lack of trust in this defence is pitiful. This Bantams team just is so uninspired and woeful that I honestly feel dejected and don't even look forward to games these days. This back-channelling, frustrating City team are making fans of the club fall out of love with football.
And so it appears that once again, we are due yet another squad overhaul for this upcoming Summer.
The recent performances evidence that the poor form was never hugely the fault of Gary Bowyer, but of the players. McCall previously proved himself at City back in 2017- why isn't it working right now? The players.
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