Into the Mincer at Bratfud
‘Tis still the season to be jolly and Mince Pies are one measure of this. But being put through the mincer is something no football supporter wants for his or her team anywhere on the planet. The New Year and new decade began for Morecambe with a trip to Valley Parade for a meeting with a club with a vastly different experience during the 2010s to their own. Bradford City is the best-supported club in League Two, with an average home gate this season of about 14000. In the relatively recent past, they have been members of the English Premiership but ten years ago, they found themselves in League Two with Stuart McCall at the helm. The ex-Scottish International and club captain announced his intention to get the club back to its former place in the elite of British football but he left with the Bantams still in the bottom EFL division during February 2010. Things seemed to be on the up when they reached the League Cup Final during 2013, having beaten three Premiership clubs on the way – but Swansea City hammered them 5-0 at Wembley. They won the League Two Playoff Final as some compensation later in the season, however. Since then, there have been several false dawns – their extraordinary 2-4 win during 2015 as a League One team against Premier League leaders and recent European Champions Chelsea at Stamford Bridge from a position where they had been two-nil down, for example. They ended-up seventh in League Two during this season, two places behind Yorkshire rivals Sheffield United. From that time onwards, though, the two clubs have taken markedly different trajectories. Whilst the Blades returned to their current status as a Premiership team, Bradford stalled once again. League One was as good as it got and last season, they slumped back into League Two once more.
In recent times though, incoming Manager Gary Bowyer’s team has not lost any of its last five League Two matches, having won two and drawn the rest. More significantly, perhaps, is the fact that the Bantams have been unbeaten in their last six home games. This has put them into fourth place and thus the Play-Off positions in League Two.
So Morecambe’s task against City on New Year’s Day was pretty formidable. The Shrimps were next to the bottom of the EFL prior to the game on a run of three losses in their last five League Two matches and just a single win. For their fixture at Cambridge United on Boxing Day, Manager Derek Adams named only five substitutes in his team and left several match-fit players behind in Morecambe. (Since then, he has sent one of the substitutes he did name – Tyler Brownsword – on-loan to non-league Chorley for a month.) After their latest defeat, he announced that his team `don’t have the quality in the squad to go forward and in January, we need to add numbers and to get better players in than the ones we left at home’. So taking-on a club with almost ten times their own actual home support with a self-acknowledged weak team in a situation where previous omens were not good was not an encouraging start to a new decade. Morecambe had lost seven and won just three of their previous fifteen League Two meetings with City, including a 1-2 reversal last October at the Globe Arena. A realistic hope would be that the Shrimps might escape from Valley Parade without being humiliated – and hopefully with eleven men still on the pitch at the end of the match (something they have failed to do in two of their last three away games).
City lined-up with the same team which beat Mansfield Town 2-0 at this venue on Boxing Day. Derek Adams dropped both Lewis Allesandra and Kevin Ellison to the bench from his last selection and replaced them with Aaron Wildig and A-Jay Leitch-Smith. Sam Lavelle has been suspended recently but has picked-up an injury during this time and was only fit enough for a place among the substitutes. DA also included Michael Howard among his potential replacements, showing that a man who has barely featured since being released by Preston North End during the summer might be in the Manager’s mind for the rest of this season’s campaign.
It was dry but cloudy at times as the game kicked-off. Morecambe pushed forward in the opening few minutes and Steven Old had a header blocked after an early corner and then Alex Kenyon took a shot from close-in which was also blocked. They came even closer after eleven minutes when Old beat Bantams’ goalkeeper Richard O’Donnell but his header bounced back off the crossbar. Three minutes later, Captain Kenyon was at it again following a pass from John O’Sullivan only for the massed ranks of the City defence to block his effort once more. It seemed to take Bradford a quarter of an hour to shake off the New Year blues but they started to get at least a foot in the game from this point with Shay McCartan having an attempt blocked after twenty minutes and Captain James Vaughan sending a fierce shot high and wide three minutes later. Dylan Connolly than also missed the target after being played-in by Anthony O’Connor with twenty-five minutes on the clock. At the other end, George Tanner also tried his luck from a long way out and missed a couple of minutes later. Near the end, Jake Reeves set-up Vaughan for another chance with a well-judged cross but once again his effort – a header this time – went over the bar. A half which was pretty evenly balanced ended goal-less albeit with Carlos Mendes-Gomes having the last say for the visitors – his injury-time strike was saved by O’Donnell right at the end.
If the Shrimps were expecting an onslaught in the second half, they were to be pleasantly surprised because it never materialised. Carlos tested the home keeper again after 61 minutes; Tom Brewitt’s effort was blocked by the Bantams’ defence four minutes later and Ritchie Sutton narrowly missed the target with a shot as just over an hour had been played. Gary Bowyer shook things up with a double substitution at this point but still the home side struggled to force Mark Halstead in the Shrimps’ net into any meaningful action. A-Jay was prompted by Brewitt to test Halstead’s opposite number again with 67 minutes played. Paudie O’Connor was perhaps lucky only to be shown only a yellow card when he pulled back the well-placed Leitch-Smith after 68 minutes as the visitors continued to play on the front foot. But Bradford went ahead almost against the run of play in the eightieth minute when substitute Aramide Oteh bundled home a cross from Connor Wood after he, in turn, had been set-up by Dylan Connolly. In doing so, he stole all three points for the Yorkshire club. City could have gone further ahead on 83 minutes when another substitute, Zeli Ismail, hit the crossbar on the half-volley. Vaughan then came close when he headed a Wood cross just wide in the closing minutes of the contest.
So, in the end, Bradford marched on. This was a double for them over the Shrimps this season and it pushed them into fourth place in League Two, just a point behind Crewe in third. Morecambe briefly took over basement duties at the bottom of the division from Stevenage when the final whistle blew. However, Borough then conceded in the fourth minute of injury time at Sixfields, having managed to hold out for a scoreless draw at Northampton until that point. With Macclesfield rescuing a 2-2 draw at Port Vale from a losing position, Derek Adams’s team remain safe by a single point this evening, two points behind the Silkmen.
Despite the loss, Mr Adams must be encouraged by the committed performance of his players today. Against a good team, they were never outplayed and they were actually the better side for large parts of the game. On another day, they may have taken home at least a point. But it wasn’t to be and Derek must now try and turn the changes he has said he wants to make to his team into reality.
Bradford City: 1Richard O’Donnell; 6 Paudie O’Connor; 4 Anthony O’Connor (Y); 5 Ben Richards-Everton; 22 Adam Henley (25 Aramide Oteh 60’); 8 Jake Reeves (29 Chris Taylor 77’); 16 Matt Palmer; 23 Connor Wood; 14 Shay McCartan (11 Zeli Ismail 61’); 19 Dylan Connolly; 12 James Vaughan (C) (Y).
Subs not used: 30 George Sykes-Kenworthy; 17 Jordan Gibson; 18 Jermaine Anderson; 26 Callum Cooke.
Morecambe: 21 Mark Halstead; 3 Luke Conlan (Y); 27 George Tanner; 5 Steven Old; 4 Alex Kenyon (C); 14 Tom Brewitt; 12 Ritchie Sutton; 7 John O’Sullivan; 15 Aaron Wildig (11 Kevin Ellison 84’); 19 Carlos Mendes-Gomes; 10 A-Jay Leitch-Smith.
Subs not used: 28 Andre Filipe Da Silva Mendes; 8 Lewis Alessandra; 33 Jordan Cranston; 17 Michael Howard; 16 Sam Lavelle.
Ref: Andy Haines.
Attendance: unknown but Lots (with quite a lot from Morecambe)
