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Quick point, Paul (and not a criticism as I'm not sure where you are situated in the ground):
For the third goal, you said: "...the visitors continued their habit of making mincemeat of our flanks when Pointon got free down Bradford’s left to set up Neufville for an easy finish from fifteen yards."
In fact, the Bradford player had made a mess of it and his effort was going wide until Wintle turned it into the net. You could see that clearly from our vantage point in block 115 of the Ninian Stand. It was an own goal and I'm surprised it's been credited to Neufville as it definitely wasn't on target.
There was a discussion about luck earlier in the week. Against Plymouth, City scored with two lucky deflections at critical points in the game. Yesterday, City were unfortunate to see two efforts that deflected off Bradford defenders trickle to safety, while Wintle deflected the ball into his own net.
Bradford were comfortably the better side and those deflections in both games may have ended up making no difference to the eventual results, but it demonstrates how luck can play a significant part in games despite some people apparently believing it doesn't.
It was clear that we were being overloaded out wide and around Wintle but it was disappointing we didn't change formation until late on.
Apparently this wasn't a new setup or tactic by Bradford so our scouting of opposition needs questioning. We also did absolutely nothing to stop their keeper playing the ball to their wing backs.
yes Bradford were good, better organised than us and more committed in all areas of the pitch.
From the second they won the toss and made us change ends you felt that they weren't going to let us have it all our own way.
I don't recall too many of their players standing out as individuals, but as a team they were far better than us in practically every aspect.
it might have been one of those games that would have panned out differently if we had scored first, but who knows.
Too many of our players didn't stand up to the challenge.
Turnbull had a bad game, too many of his passes were astray or easily intercepted, and the ones that weren't sucked any momentum out of our attacks. it's like he plays the game in slow motion at times.
Bagan was also below his recent best, quite a few misplaced passes.
Ashford was an interesting one, got a lot of stuck from the crowd and on here, and he wasn't good so it's hard to argue against that. most of the things he didn't that went wrong were highly visible. misplaced passes or ineffectual crosses that lead to an attack breaking down. however he remained involved constantly, always showing up as an option.
I can't recall willock on the other flank doing anything particularly wrong, or anything particularly right and I'm not sure which is worse ultimately- to be involved and nothing coming off or just being a passenger.
Kpakio had a mixed bag I thought. at times looked decent in one v ones and always there to support in attack, but they found it far to easy to get players in space down his flank. we were a lot more solid there when Ng came on (but obviously the game state was very different by that point).
We looked better in a 4-4-2 when we were chasing the game, Robinson and Davies both looked hungry and I enjoyed Osho's breaks into midfield when it opened up for him. unfortunately those are about the only positives I can take from the game
I thought Salech was excellent, not a lot of support, not a lot of sympathy from the ref but kept battling throughout.
once again the standard of refereeing was terrible, not that it really affected the result
there were a lot of minor decisions that they got completely wrong, couple of throw ins etc and a number of blatant fouls that weren't given.
the through ball that the penalty came from looked offside at the time, but I've not seen it back, so it may have been level.
I don't think the bad refereeing is in any way excusing our poor performance, but I do think it was pretty mystifying at times