It was a case of after Lord Mayors show yesterday as the Saddlers somehow followed up a fantastic victory away at Sunderland in the FA Cup with a second half performance at Bradford City which Keates labelled embarrassing and called on his players to grow up.
For the hardly souls that braved the minus temperatures in Bradford (it’s always cold even in the summer) it left a sour taste in our mouths as the Saddlers produced one of the worst halves of football you will see for some time.
At half time most of us said “we will comeback in the second half” – how wrong could we be.
Our two more experienced players – Isaiah Osbourne and Russell Martin were the downfall and contributed to Bradford’s goals. Time and time again both were flat footed and allowed Bradford to get behind them without any care in the world.
We know we ain’t going to just turn up and beat everyone but the lack of effort on more than one occasion this season is something that we cannot legislate for.
Deano has had just one transfer window to try and right all the wrongs from the previous regime and let’s be honest he will still need another three windows at least…his first priority has to be the defence. We have now conceded thirty three goals so far this season – only five League 1 clubs have conceded more.
Had Cookie been more clinical and scored the two chances he had then it could have been a completely different game however conceding goals for fun will not win you games neither and since Martin has been in the side the goals against column has increased significantly.
Id like to say it was a bad day at the office but when you throw into the mix Southend (a), Luton (a), Burton (h) and Doncaster (h) – you realise the problems lie a lot deeper.
We have often been on the receiving end of a hammering at Bradford but for a side to lose 4-0 to a side that was bottom of League 1 is unacceptable and quite frankly pathetic.
Keates will not accept performances like that much longer, he knows what us as fans want – and I believe him when he says he will sort it.
Roll on the January transfer window.
