Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Friday 24 October 2008

Division 4

Grimsby Town 1 Trotter (65)

Bradford City 3 Daley (7), Boulding (32), Lee (58)

Attendance: 4470

Town's outstanding player, before he goes home for his cocoa.

Rather strangely, given the score, Bennett had an excellent match and Newey wasn't far off that standard either. Now what does that say about Heywood? But overall, from start and to finish, there was only one player wearing monochrome who matched Bradfordians for endeavour, determination and talent: Liam Trotter. It was his kind of game: space available and played on the ground; he excelled excellently, as long as we ignore his woeful miss from six yards just after half time.

"We lack that killer instinct. We have to get the players to believe in themselves."

"I don't want to name individuals but I thought we had a tremendous skipper's performance from Graeme Lee, and Peter Thorne up top on his own led the line ever so well, and Rhys Evans made a world-class save."

Efficiently organised, solidly constructed and with an idea how to play football, They didn't hump and dump forward: they passed it frequently and broke elegantly using their thrusting turbines. Dasher Daley was fearsome before being withdrawn as McCall took pity on Clarke, while McLaren controlled the game from his perch in the centre. The ball simply stuck to Thorne, who acted as a fulcrum not a wheel. They were very calm. Their keeper looked like a flappy shot-stopper. In short, they weren't short, in stature or of composure. Should go up, as they look like a team that's playing a league below its true standard.

Mr G Salisbury (Lancs)
You're going to like this, but not a lot. We finally get an honest, decent and true referee against Bradford and we still blow it. He did exactly what we asked, and didn't make any mad, bizarre or even slightly odd decisions. The sending off was after his linesman flagged, so anything untoward there is down to his glamorous assistant, the lovely Debbie McGheeeeeee. He was just any good -€“ 9.099. Now that's magic.

We had lots of shots.