JACK Shepherd’s stunning City winner today reminded Graham Alexander of Zinedine Zidane.

Shepherd crashed a volley into the top corner as the Bantams beat Gillingham 2-1 to clinch a third straight victory and move up to fifth.

City had to come from behind before Neill Byrne and fellow centre half Shepherd scored before half-time.

Alexander was raving about the quality of Shepherd’s second goal for the club.

He said: “When they see Jack’s name on the scoresheet, they’ll be expecting a header or a close-range finish.

“It was unbelievable technique, how he’s moved his feet to get back to be able to steady himself ready to hit the volley and it’s gone in the perfect place in the top corner.

“It reminded me of a goal scored in a Champions’ League final many years ago by Zidane. He might be living off that for a while!

“It was a goal worthy of winning any game.”

Both City goals stemmed from set-pieces – an area where Alexander had demanded improvement going into the game.

Byrne turned home Jamie Walker’s corner and Shepherd’s screamer followed Gillingham’s botched attempts to clear a free-kick by Richie Smallwood.

Alexander added: “Maybe we took inspiration from Leeds last night! They scored (from a set-piece) for the first time since February.

“It’s not a gauge of what you are as a team but I think it’s important.

“We’ve gone close a couple of times this season and been unlucky with it. But I thought our delivery and intent was good today.

“You just need them to land on you when you make those runs. Byrner’s was a really good finish from close range and Jack’s goal was ridiculous.”

 

 

Byrne had come in for Jay Benn, who missed out after suffering from the sickness bug that has affected the squad during the week.

Tyreik Wright, another one who had been suffering, went off in the first half with a tight hamstring.

City extended their unbeaten home record to nine games since March. But this was the first time they had fallen behind.

Alexander said: “We talked about not everything going our way all the time and why does it surprise us if we go a goal down or a bad decision goes against us.

“It’s football and it happens all the time. We’ve just got to keep our composure and playing the way we want to.

“I thought our first-half performance was the best we’ve played this season.

“It followed on from the Newport game here and we deserved to be in the lead at half-time. But even if we’d been 1-0 down at that point, I’d still have been delighted with how we played.

“It was just one blip where we conceded. But our body language was good, our support for each other was good and the supporters responded to that as well.

“We were all on the same page and we deserved to be in front after that.”