Bradford City 0, Reading 1: Ashley Ward dominated the thoughts of both managers - and he wasn't even playing.

The big fella had to make do with watching the Reading game from the Sunwin Stand on Saturday and must have been twice as frustrated as anybody by City's shortcomings.

But those 90 painful minutes of huff and puff will have reminded everyone how big a part of City Ward may be.

He may have his legion of knockers who scoff at his lack of goals compared with his wage packet. But, having watched the home side's powder-puff efforts to break down Reading's bruisers, would you not pick him?

Reading boss Alan Pardew had flicked on the TV in the team hotel to be greeted with the news that Ward was out with broken ribs.

He said: "I thought it was my lucky day when I read on text that big Wardy was out. I knew poor old Nicky Law would be up against it."

Law must be fed up with the number of occasions he has defended his centre-forward from the big mouths in the crowd. But he was rallying around him once again after a game when City failed to trouble Reading keeper Marcus Hahnemann with a single decent effort.

"That just shows you," said the Bantams boss. "Everybody gets excited and Wardy comes in for a lot of criticism. But when you look at that game it just shows what a valuable player he is.

"Everybody has got excited about young Danny Forrest and rightly so. But it's a big call for him to come in from the start against two experienced centre-halves.

"You need your older experienced players like Wardy and we didn't have that."

The bad news is that Ward may not be around at all for the remainder of the season. Even worse for City, should Andy Gray get a belated call from Berti Vogts and disappear on Scotland duty he will not be around at Norwich next week.

That could force Law into pitching in a raw frontline of Forrest and new-boy Ben Muirhead who was given his head for the last 20 minutes on Saturday. The former Manchester United prodigy produced a few neat touches and nearly squeezed out a stoppage-time equaliser but dragged it wide from close in.

It was as near as City got against a side who proved why they have the best away record in the division.

This was win number 11 on the road for Reading and nobody could deny they were good value for it. Even if the only goal was a total comedy of errors on City's part.

The visitors were down to ten men for the second half following Nathan Tyson's harsh red card and the City defence were under orders to knock the ball around and make Nicky Forster, Reading's only attacker, do all the running.

But there is a time and a place and the edge of their own penalty area with the blue shirts pressing was neither.

Simon Francis, who had a difficult afternoon against Forster, particularly in the first half, should have wellied the ball upfield. Instead he chose lateral to David Wetherall.

The pass was thumped and came at the skipper with venom as Wetherall tried to ferry it back to Aidan Davison.

The ball was still popping up as it arrived at the feet of the keeper who decided he needed a couple of seconds before launching a clearance. It proved a fatal delay as two opponents quickly descended on him.

Davison panicked and scuffed it only as far as Forster just inside the penalty area and the Reading hitman controlled and coolly dispatched his 13th goal of the campaign.

There was still 23 minutes left but the result was a foregone conclusion. City could have still been playing today and they wouldn't have dug up an equaliser.

It was a completely featureless performance from the hosts who did nothing to excite a crowd over 3,000 down on the Sheffield Wednesday derby in midweek. The first half was a spillover from the second against the Owls. As Law feared, the lack of a threat on the left side neutered his team's potency.

With no Lewis Emanuel, Andy Myers or Wayne Jacobs, Mark Bower was handed the left-back role almost by default as the only left-footer available. And the centre-half did a decent job but he carried no natural over-lapping threat.

There was no balance to City's play and their passing was awful. "It was like we'd just met," was how a deflated Law put it.

The tone was set straight from the kick-off. City took it but then Forster nipped away and only smart reactions from Davison denied Nathan Tyson a goal before many of the crowd had found their seats.

Reading had another gilt-edged chance after ten minutes. Forster slipped past Francis, not for the first time, and laid it on a plate for Tyson six yards out but again there was no knock-out blow as the ball flew over the bar.

When Forster hit a post from an Andy Hughes cross City knew they were living on borrowed time.

But with seconds of the first half remaining, referee Scott Mathieson seemed to give them a helping hand by dismissing Tyson. He had already been booked for appearing to stamp on Jamie Lawrence and the winger was on his way after a clip on Gus Uhlenbeek.

Law, grateful to go in still level, rallied his dressing room during the interval to take advantage of their extra man. Sadly nothing changed at all.

It was impossible to work out which side was depleted for the second half. It was certainly not a case of 11 men against ten, more like ten against about six.

Nobody pressed the ball, Reading were never seriously threatened by a side who meekly accepted home defeat number six. The gimme of a goal just summed it up.

"I really like this town," beamed Pardew afterwards. "There are nice people in Bradford and I've got some good friends up here."

Unfortunately City had made his team too welcome and taken the genial host act a bit too far.