Bradford City boss Taylor driven mad by crazy six minutes

Taylor could have been sat on the bench at Broadhall Way watching Newcastle get turfed out of the FA Cup by Stevenage.

Instead he was forced to suffer another afternoon of hari kari which City do so depressingly well from time to time.

Having turned down the Toon advances, this was a real slap in the face for the manager.

Even more so considering that neither he – nor 10,500 others in the stand – saw it coming.

That’s what made the goading chants of the 86 jubilant travelling Barnet fans all the more galling.

“Can we play you every week?” they taunted as City were left numbed by six minutes of utter madness half way through the second period.

It had not been a good game. The Bantams were a mere shadow of the team that had ripped into Bury five days before.

But that’s par for the course with this club. Turn over the side with the best away record one week; then collapse totally against one with the worst the next.

And yet City had emerged from a sterile first half still a goal to the good.

Despite lacking any kind of tempo or fluidity to their play, they survived a howling miss by Izale McLeod to steal in front with the last touch of added time.

David Syers worried a mistake out of rookie goalkeeper Liam O’Brien, who failed to gather a long punt from Lenny Pidgeley. Syers flipped the loose ball over the stranded stopper and Luke Oliver found the empty net to break his scoring duck for the season.

All well and good, even more so when City re-emerged with the vim and vigour that Valley Parade had been anticipating an hour before.

Corner after corner followed as Barnet struggled to escape the penalty area, let alone their own half.

Shane Duff clipped a post and Oliver bobbed a header on top of the bar and a decisive second goal – and third successive win – seemed only a matter of time.

Then everything went crazy.

Barnet won a throw-in on City’s right, Glen Southam was allowed to cross unchallenged and sub Rob Kiernan – equally uninhibited – bulleted a header past his own keeper from six yards.

It was a nightmare moment for the on-loan Watford youngster, who had been outstanding against Bury in his previous outing. Perhaps Pidgeley, too, could have shouted to avert the potential disaster.

Taylor, though, thought the rot set when Syers failed to close down the Barnet midfielder in the first place.

He said: “If Dave Syers does his job right, he just gives away another throw-in or the ball goes back to the thrower. You cannot allow your man just to come off, turn and cross it like that.

“It caused indecision because of the way it was allowed to be played in so easily.”

Worse, much worse, was quickly to follow.

Barnet – without an away win in ten months – suddenly sensed this was going to be the day that rotten run was put to bed.

Fair play for not letting their heads drop when City had picked their pocket with Oliver’s goal against the run of play. But they must have expected a bit more home resistance once the equaliser did go in.

Instead, Anwar Uddin was left free by Oliver at the next corner and cashed in with a far-post header.

And as City hurled bodies forward for a corner of their own, McLeod led a sniperish counter-attack before teeing up Ricky Holmes for the simplest of finishes. The Bantams had been blown away.

Taylor, all gyrating arms and frustrated posturing for the first 45 minutes, looked shell-shocked on the sideline. Having stirred a 15-minute response out of his lackadaisical players at the start of the second half, that good work had come to nothing in three critical incidents. They were Barnet’s only three efforts on target.

Not for the first time, Taylor had a beef about the lack of volume within the home ranks. Nobody was shouting and bawling and maybe sorting out the problems before they could get out of hand.

Duff, back in the team for the injured Steve Williams, had not had the best first half. But having found the woodwork straight after the restart, he was forced to withdraw just five minutes in after taking a bang in the back.

The one commanding voice in the side was silenced but Taylor admitted he had no choice.

“Shane’s back was stiffening up and there’s nothing we could have done. People would have seen he could only just about run when we took him off.”

Tom Adeyemi had made way at half-time, primarily to spare his badly-bruised instep from further punishment, though he had contributed little.

So Hull youngster Mark Cullen was thrown in for his first 45 minutes and twice should have been played in for scoring chances by James Hanson and Gareth Evans.

His frustrated reaction to seeing his positioning go unrewarded was that of a striker used to better service from Championship team-mates. But he looked lively enough on first glance.

Cullen’s shot on the turn late on forced a routine save from debutant O’Brien, who had also tipped over from Omar Daley and nipped the ball smartly off the toes of Syers.

But they were isolated incidents and you never felt there was any conviction for any fightback. The game was up long before.