Bradford City have impressive record when scoring first goal

Stats show how effective they are after opening the scoring.

The Bantams have netted first 17 times in the league since Graham Alexander took the Valley Parade helm just under a year ago.

They have gone on to be victorious in 16 of them.

The only exception to the rule was last season’s trip to Colchester in January where Andy Cook’s first-half goal was cancelled out by a home equaliser on Sam Walker’s debut in goal.

Otherwise, it has been a perfect record for Alexander’s Bantams whenever they deliver the opening blow – including all five wins so far this season.

“I wasn’t aware of that record but it’s a good one,” said the City boss. “Hopefully we can manage to maintain that.

“It’s important because it means that if you score the first goal, you’re hard to beat and you’re picking up points. That’s what we want to do.

“On the reverse of that, we’ve spoken about conceding first at Valley Parade when we first came in and that put us under a lot of pressure.

“We made headway in stopping that and trying to get the first goal ourselves.”

City have won three of their five home games so far - but had to bounce back from conceding equalisers against Carlisle and Newport.

Alexander felt his side should have done better on the ball in last week's gritty triumph at Tranmere.

But he was very pleased with the defensive solidity of the side – especially given the late upheaval of losing Neill Byrne just before the game.

“They had a lot of possession in the second half, which I’d like us to correct.

“I’d like us to have more of the ball and more control. We had a lot of control in our discipline and defensive shape but I don’t think we had that in our possession.

“We still want to score but I thought we turned over the ball too cheaply at times.

“Defensively, we were excellent. There wasn’t a period where I felt we were really under the cosh.

“Their pressure was mid-third. When they came to the final third around our box, I thought we looked really structured and focused in our defending.

The only blot on Graham Alexander's record was at Colchester (Image: Thomas Gadd)

“Our positions were right, our challenges were disciplined. We weren’t stupid and didn’t give too many cheap set-pieces away.

“When you consider the youth of the backline again. Not doing Brad (Halliday) a disservice, and we only had Hunty (Paul Huntington) for the last 15 minutes, but you look at Jay Benn, Jack Shepherd, Cheick Diabate and Lewis Richards.

“These are young players and managed the game well.

“Obviously, Richie (Smallwood) was doing a really good job in front of them. It’s really important he’s like a centre point for us where they can work around.

“As I said at the time, it was a real professional performance and those win points more often than if it’s a case of you attack, we attack, you attack, we attack. We’re trying to avoid those types of games if possible.

“We do create chances and if we’d played better, we would have created more on Saturday.

“But the defensive side is really important to us and making sure we have that balance in our team.

“I think if you do keep more clean sheets, it’s actually easier to score goals as well.”