Glovers boss Gary Johnson selected more or less the team that had won the match against Walsall last week, which meant two changes to the starting line-up for the trip to Valley Parade as Luciano Alvarez was replaced by Arron Davies and Phil Jevons came on for Nathan Jones. They came up against a Bradford side lined with several former Premiership players, including League One's player of the month Dean Windass.

It was Windass himself who nearly got in on the early action, running in on a through ball barely after the game had started and slotting the ball home past Chris Weale, but the linesman's flag had long before gone up, and in truth Wealey just watched the ball go into the net.

The Glovers though started the game really sharply and took the game to Bradford, with the home side's left flank taking a real battering as Kevin Amankwaah, Kevin Gall and Lee Johnson took it in turns to launch attacks down Yeovil's right wing.

It was from one such run that Yeovil got a perfect start to the match. A corner was forced, and Lee Johnson whipped in a perfect ball, tailor-made for Terry SKIVERTON to plant an unmarked header from the penalty spot into the back of the net. 1-0 up, and Bradford manager Colin Todd's pre-match diatribe of "attack, attack, attack" was looking shakey already.

It took Bradford 22 minutes before they got their first legitimate attack, with many of their early attempts being thwarted by the linesman's flag and the Yeovil back line. Andrew Cooke got on the end of a left-wing cross but he put his shot wide of Chris Weale's right-hand post. Dean Windass was mainly being kept quiet but he got one brief moment in on goal when he got in behind the Yeovil defence, but Chris Weale spread himself well and blocked the narrow angled shot superbly, gathering it at the second attempt.

But in the main this was Yeovil's half, and Phil Jevons went close after half an hour after he accepted Lee Johnson's knock-back, firing his shot from 20 yards out and producing a flying save by home keeper Russell Howarth. Five minutes later Colin Miles was the next to go close when Howarth made a complete hash of a Lee Johnson cross, flapping at the ball straight to the feet of Miles. Somehow the keeper recovered to get a palm on the first time shot, grabbing it at the second attempt.

Bradford finished the half with a short flurry of chances to prove that they were still in the game with Chris Weale being forced to parry at close range a narrow angled strike from Ben Muirhead - certainly the most dangerous City player on the day - then a minute later Steven Schumaker curled a ball round the corner of Chris Weale's goalframe. But it was the Glovers who appropriately created the last chance of the half as a Kevin Amankwaah throw resulted in Lee Johnson feeding Pablo Bastianini, who turned and fired a shot that whistled across the face of the Bradford goal.

A quiet start to the second half saw Bradford ring the changes early on with Danny Cadamarteri replacing former Darlington winger Bobby Petta. The half saw Yeovil drop back about 10 yards on their first half strategy, inviting Bradford to come on to them, and defensively the first 15 minutes passed off without real incident, with Bradford struggling to find any route in on the Yeovil goal.

All that changed 20 minutes into an event free half when Colin Miles had gone down injured and struggled to carry on. Nathan Jones replaced him, and straight from the re-start, Yeovil got caught on the counter-attack. A Glovers free kick was cleared by the Bradford defence, and Jones was caught cold with his attempt to put the ball back into the danger zone being blocked by a Bradford player. The ball squirmed wide onto Yeovil's right, where Kevin Amankwaah retrieved the situation with a sliding tackle but in doing so collided with Kevin Gall. With three Yeovil players now over-committed, Ben MUIRHEAD grabbed the ball, cut in from the left wing and as he entered the Yeovil penalty area, he fired cleanly past Chris Weale to equalise the scores.

The goal woke up the home side and their supporters and for the following 15 minutes, it was Bradford who looked the more likely to win the match, having their best spell of the game. Andrew Cooke was replaced by Yeovil fans 'favourite' Steve Claridge, whilst Liam Fontaine had to limp off following an injury to be replaced by Efetobore Sodje. Pablo Bastianini, who had been studded in a first half challenge completed a trio of limping Glovers as he was replaced by Matt Harrold.

Ben Muirhead landed in the referee's notebook for a rash challenge on Kevin Gall after the ball had gone, as Yeovil finally came out of their shells, finishing the game strongly. Darren Way set up Kevin Amankwaah with a great chance when he chested the ball down to the right-back but he went for power instead of precision and the result was the ball screamed over the bar.

Matt Harrold set up Phil Jevons with three minutes left when perhaps the youngster should have gone for goal himself but Jevons shot wide of the target. But a minute later, Bradford had an extreme let-off when Matt Harrold set up Arron Davies who smacked the ball against the foot of the post from 15 yards out with Howarth beaten. From the rebound, Lee Johnson drove the ball at the target, but somehow Howarth got a palm in the way and on the second attempt grabbed the ball safely.

Dean Windass completed what was a pretty anonymous match for him by mouthing off to the linesman and getting in the referees notebook for his troubles, as Bradford failed to keep their second half performance going, and it was Yeovil who will have felt hard done by to not be going home with all three points. Perhaps Bradford would argue that their second half pressure deserved something but in truth despite the territorial advantage they actually created more during their weaker first period, and in the end had to rely on the width of a post to stop Yeovil from coming home with all three points.

Badger.

MOTM Vote Result:

Player MOTM Score Terry Skiverton 7 452 Kevin Gall 4 383 Kevin Amankwaah 6 348 Chris Weale 2 148 Liam Fontaine 2 148 Arron Davies 2 87

Overall match rating: 7.3 / 10
Performance: 7.4
Entertainment: 7.2

23 votes received.

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