Bradford City 4 Brentford 0
The Bantams maintained their 100% start to their home campaign with another impressive victory; Uwe Rosler’s Brentford on the receiving end on this occasion. Following ‘keeper David Button’s red card James Hanson opened the scoring before Nahki Wells added a second, Garry Thompson headed home a third and Hanson added a gloss to the scoreline with his second of the game to round off the goal scoring for the day.
Many people were aware that Brentford should prove a tough opposition to face, probably the toughest yet and they almost got off to a flying start; Martin Fillo got to the byline well before cutting back to George Saville who saw his goal bound shot blocked behind for a corner by Andrew Davies. From the resulting corner Davies failed to clear his lines and Harlee Dean eventually blazed a shot well over the bar from close range.
City almost went ahead in bizarre fashion; Tony Craig’s under hit back was met by a big kick from David Button but Wells covered ground quickly to block the attempted clearance and the ball deflected back towards goal and dropped a yard or so over the bar to spare Brentford blushes.
With the game pretty much finely balanced Brentford were reduced to 10 men after much deliberation between the referee and the linesman. A hopeful pass towards Wells saw The Bermudian get there just ahead of Button and the towering keeper sent him sprawling with a ferocious tackle deemed worthy of a straight red card.
Wells almost scored the opener when he latched onto Hanson’s knock down but he saw his powerful angled drive blocked by Mr.Brentford, Kevin O’Connor. The opening goal did come before the half time interval and it came from James Hanson. James Meredith got to the byline and cut the ball back towards Wells and after the visitors failed to clear their lines Hanson stole in to hammer the ball into the roof of the net.
Hanson almost got another early in the second half but he was denied by the crossbar after his looping header had beaten substitute goalkeeper Jack Bonham all ends up.
The second goal came on the hour and it came in a comedic way; a seemingly harmless pass resulted in Craig heading the ball past Bonham following a lack of communication to leave Wells with probably the easiest goal he will score in his career as he tapped into a completely empty goal.
Three minutes later the result was put beyond doubt as City added a third goal. Meredith produced a teasing cross which saw Garry Thompson completely overpower his marker Shaleum Logan to thump a header into the bottom corner beyond the helpless Bonham.
A fourth goal came shortly after as the hosts were in rampant mood once again; Kyel Reid delivered an excellent far post corner which was met by the head of Hanson unmarked to steer the ball home in front of the delighted Kop.
Brentford’s main man Clayton Donaldson had had a very quiet game, though the red card won’t have helped the cause, but he came close to pulling a low back when he headed Adam Forshaw’s teasing near post free kick narrowly wide of the target.
Donaldson was very unlucky not to score in the 83rd minute. Harlee Dean’s cross evaded everybody in the area and looped over Jon McLaughlin before coming back off the far post and bouncing away from Donaldson; had the ball bounced to him he would’ve been left with a very easy tap in but it wasn’t to be.
Forshaw’s speculative long range drive had to be alertly tipped over the bar by McLaughlin who seemed determined to keep yet another home clean sheet. The effort was the last to be produced by a red and white shirt and The Bantams held on to record an emphatic victory over one of the division’s most fancied teams to soar back into the play-off places.