Bradford were the visitors to the County Ground on Saturday and the team from Yorkshire came in search of their first away win of the season. Swindon were going into the game on a three match unbeaten run and with an eye on the automatic promotion places. Just who would come out on top? Reports Andrew Steele-Davis.

Having kept the same line-up for the last three games, Di Canio opted for only the one change, Mehdi Kerrouche returning from suspension to replace Cristian Montano in the starting eleven. Montano dropped to the bench where there was also a welcome return from injury for Phil Smith, who now has his work cut out to oust the impressive Wes Foderingham from the No 1 spot.

Bradford lined up rather defensively, clearly playing for the draw straight from the off with centre backs Marcel Seip and Luke Oliver hoofing long balls up field to big centre forward James Hanson at every opportunity. However, when Town had the ball, Bradford put all eleven players behind the ball in order to frustrate Town.

The game had an explosive opening; Aden Flint rolled a simple pass back to Wes Foderingham in the Town goal, and on seeing that the ball took a blatant touch of a Bradford player, proceeded to pick it up. However, to the home crowd’s disbelief, the rather unimpressive referee pointed for an indirect free-kick giving the visitors an early opportunity to open the scoring. With Foderingham frantically ordering his defence to crowd on the goal line, Bradford’s golden opportunity was wasted with Matt Ritchie charging down and then clearing the free-kick.

The rest of the half was disjointed with Bradford preventing Town from playing their sexy attacking brand of football and narrowing the play through the middle. Town resorted to launching balls towards the front two of Kerrouche and Jake Jervis, but the formidable duo of Oliver and Seip in the Bantams defence dealt comprehensively with everything that came their way.

Bradford also dominated Swindon when playing through the middle as Jonathan Smith had what can only be described as a nightmare in Town’s engine room. Every pass he tried went straight to the opposition or even out of play on some occasions which meant that Simon Ferry had to do twice the amount of work. Ferry, who didn’t have his best of games can only be praised for his work ethic which was again on show on Saturday.

At times it looked as though as though Smith was living off his goal from midweek against Gillingham, constantly going for the shot as opposed to looking for team mates in better positions. Ritchie was also guilty off this and he also infuriated many by trying to many skills and flicks when he would have been better to get an early delivery into the box.

Despite Ritchie’s world class goal in midweek, let’s not forget that in recent weeks he has gone off the boil and has been a shadow of the man that spread fear among defences throughout League Two only as recent as a month ago.
Town’s best chance of the first half came through a Paul Caddis free-kick thirty yards out but his thunderous effort was dealt with by Matt Duke in the Bradford goal.

Swindon came out in the second half with some purpose, but again the ineffective Jake Jervis up front failed to create any clear cut opportunities. The defence of Bradford was proving too stubborn for the front paring of Kerrouche and Jervis to penetrate and it was obvious a change needed to be made. Despite the call of Alan Connell to be brought on by many of the Town faithful, the change was not made until very late in the game which proved to be far too late to make any impact on a dull game.

Bradford were reduced to ten men in the second half, Andrew Davies going through the back of Jervis for what was only a bookable offence but it was his foul mouth tirade against the referee that earned him a straight red.

Phil Parkinson moved Craig Fagan up front on his own and moved the battering ram that was James Hanson to the heart of their defence alongside the solid Oliver and Seip. This worked wonders for Bradford as any ball pumped into the box by Town was dealt with ease by the visitors who were more than happy to sit back and soak up the pressure by Town.

Kerrouche was replaced by Connell with Montano coming on for Raffaele De Vita who had a quiet game. Neither of these changes managed to yield a winner for Di Canio’s men, Montano having a wonderful opportunity to win it right at the death but his effort just went wide.

A very frustrating afternoon for Town who will definitely look back at the game as two points dropped rather than a point gained.

Alan McCormack, Aden Flint, Paul Caddis and Simon Ferry were the only players to come out of the game with any real credit, while the likes of Ritchie, Jervis and Jonathan Smith failed to repeat their recent strong performances.

The trip to Port Vale next week provides Town with the perfect opportunity to get back on track and continue their quest to break into the top three.

Your STFC Man of the Match: tie Aden Flint & Alan McCormack with 24% of the vote.