Graham Alexander says Bradford did not get their just rewards for a dominant performance at Crewe, for whom Chris Long’s first-half penalty proved decisive in a 1-0 home win.
The Railwaymen were indebted to two stunning saves from young keeper Tom Booth which thwarted Andy Cook and Jonathan Tomkinson in the closing minutes. Cook also had a second-half set-piece header chalked off for offside as the Bantams went down to their first defeat in seven games.
“I don’t think we got what we deserved from that performance. It’s a disappointing result as we dominated and created the best chances in the game,” said Alexander.
“Crewe have got a decent home record, but the penalty is the only shot they had on target – Harry Lewis didn’t have a save to make for the rest of the game.
“I’m gutted, although it was a penalty and we just switched off for 10 seconds in the game. We kept Crewe far away from our goal and created a lot of opportunities. We were a bit careless with our deliveries at times when we got up there, but when we showed that quality we should have scored.
“I was struggling at half-time to find a way to improve it. They had scored, but we’d defended exceptionally well apart from a 10-second spell when they got the penalty and when we lost focus. But I thought we could have had a couple of penalties ourselves with the way Andy Cook was manhandled throughout the game.
“We did create chances, we hit the bar and their keeper has made a couple of good saves.
“All in all we should have got more points over the holiday period, but we have won games previously when we haven’t played as well as we have today.”
Since Alexander’s appointment as manager in early November, Bradford had won four times and drawn twice, including a morale-boosting home draw with leaders Stockport last Friday.
But they were behind in the 13th minute when some panicked defending from Norwich loanee Tomkinson offered Long the opportunity after he was tripped to send keeper Lewis the wrong way from the resulting spot-kick.
The Bantams responded to the early setback in a direct fashion, but failed to muster much in the way of clear opportunities in the first half, save from when Tyler Smith found some space to connect with Clarke Oduor’s cross, only to divert the ball just past the far post.
After the break, though, Bradford ramped up the pressure. The offside flag went up against Cook as the striker got above Booth to head in Richie Smallwood’s free-kick.
Crewe sub Elliott Nevitt blasted over in a rare home attack. But after Alexander made a raft of changes the chances kept coming. Substitute Vadaine Oliver went close with a header which crept past the post.
Cook went even closer when Booth tipped his powerful header from Bobby Pointon’s cross onto the bar. And the home keeper dived across to keep Tomkinson’s header from hitting the bottom corner in the final seconds of stoppage time.
Crewe boss Lee Bell said: “I’m delighted with the win and for the players as they’re top fellows who want to do well for the club. We had to battle for it, but we knew we had to do that as you can’t stop the ball being thrown towards your box.
“We played the game properly and we tried to play in the right moments – our professionalism and game management was excellent. It was a lovely move to get up there and Longy took the penalty really well.
“We’ve got players who want to do really well as they’re an honest bunch of hard-working lads. Courtney Baker-Richardson worked his socks off and put his body on the line. Their centre-halves had a tough time against him and it is such a big help to us when he performs like that.
“And Luke Offord was the best player on the pitch, he loves getting stuck in and he enjoys every side of the game.”
Real Madrid 0-4 Barcelona: Guijarro brace sets visitors up for Clasico glory
Patri Guijarro's first-half brace set Barcelona on their way to a thumping 4-0 win over rivals Real Madrid in Liga F on Saturday.
Claudia Pina and Alexia Putellas were also on target as Barcelona continued their perfect start to the season, extending their lead at the top of the table.
The visitors dominated from the off, as Guijarro broke the deadlock inside the fourth minute, tapping in from Putellas' flick-on from a corner.
Cata Coll was forced into a big save to deny Alba Redondo an equaliser shortly after, but Madrid's hope was soon dented as Guijarro picked out the bottom corner with a superb long-range strike for her second.
Pina strengthened their lead six minutes before the break, clinically slotting past Misa with her low strike.
Putellas added some more gloss to the scoreline with four minutes remaining of normal time, beating the Madrid keeper with a lovely dink to bring up her 199th goal for the club.
Barcelona have won all 10 of their games, and now sit eight points clear of Madrid, who suffered their first league defeat of the campaign.
Data Debrief: Total dominance
Madrid will have felt fairly confident coming into this game after a strong start to their season, but they once again failed to find a way past their Clasico rival.
Los Blancos have lost every single game they have played against Barcelona in all competitions, with this their 15th such meeting.
Barcelona smothered their attack early on, restricting their hosts to just one shot in the first half, while they had 10.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
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