KIDS STUMBLE IN RESERVES
Walsall 0-2
Bradford City
Walsall -
Kerr, Platt (Churchill), Branch, Wheeler, Bennett, Caines, Daryl Taylor,
Jameson (Deakin), Atieno, Lopez-Soler, Willetts. Subs: Coleman, Dann, Perry.
Bradford City -
Paston, Swift, Richardson, Penford, Gavin, Folkes, Muirhead, Bentham, Forrest,
Standing, Wolleaston (Sanasy).Subs - Davies, Flynn, Denton, Wright.
An extremely young Walsall outfit were
overcome by an equally youthful Bradford side.
Neither team shone in
what was a dull game played in poor conditions.
Noticeable names in the
Bradford line-up were former M'boro defender Jason Gavin, former England youth
international Michael Standing and Ben Muirhead, a former Manchester United
trainee.
The game had a distinct
lack of clear cut chances. Both sides had a number of long range efforts, none
of which had either keeper worried.
Wolleaston opened the
scoring on 20 minutes when he dispossessed Gavin Caines on the edge of the 18
yard box before slotting the ball underneath Aaron Kerr to make it 1-0. It was
poor play from Caines who clearly wasn't concentrating on the job at hand.
Standing and Muirhead
gave our back line a lot problems, and Standing could have increased Bradford's
lead after half time, but failed to finish off a good move with a shot on
target.
There were one or two
scrambles in the Bradford box, but Bradford didn't panic and managed to clear
the danger.
Forester got the games
second goal as he put away a rebound from a Sansay shot which had come off
the underside of the cross bar.
We had a chance to pull
one back with 5 minutes to go, but Daryl Taylor blazed the ball over the
bar.
It was sad to see Taylor
miss, because he along with Nathan Jamerson had been one of our most effective
players in offensive situations.
We were pretty one
dimensional going forward, Atieno struggled on his own up-front. Lopez-Soler was
supposed to be a second striker, but didn't offer the big man much
support.
Lopez-Soler was anonymous
for most of the game. He does work hard, but loses possession far to easily. It
might be fair to say that he struggles with the pace of the game at times.
Other performances worthy
of a mention were put in by Willetts and Platt. It was the
first time I had seen Platt play and I was really surprised
by his high standards. He handled the tricky Wolleaston extremely
well, and it will be interesting to see how he develops as a player.
With a host of players
out on loan, and others like Kris Taylor and Mark Wright having been promoted to
the 1st Team, Reserve Team results have taken a turn for the worse. It would be
nice to win the league, but we can't risk playing the likes of Fryatt, Wright and Taylor
because if they get injured - We have no one apart from Youth Teamers in
reserve. Some things are just worth sacrificing.
Links
Saddlers.co.uk
Bradford
Official
