As I left Valley Parade and made my way down Midland Road last Saturday afternoon, I like thousands of other City fans felt the huge disappointment of our first leg loss against Millwall. Despite the poor result overall and the poor performance in the first half of the match however, the way City came out in the second half left a lot of Bantams fans hopeful of a turnaround in London on Friday night.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re in a rubbish situation. Losing 3-1 at home in our first leg of the play-off semi-finals is not ideal by any means but we as Bradford fans have had to endure much worse and have come out of the other side singing and celebrating. Our recent history highlights our love of being the ‘underdogs’ and going into our second leg at The Den on Friday we certainly wear that label again. City have had two famous comebacks in the football league play-offs. Blackpool and Burton. Both ties we lost our first leg at Valley Parade and both ties we went on to win away from home and subsequently to win at Wembley. To write us off at the half way stage would not only be disrespectful to a club that has so many times triumphed over the odds but would also be a huge mistake on behalf of the Millwall management and fans.
I for one have found it funny these last few weeks how Millwall fans have already written us off. Danny Baker spoke on the radio prior to the first leg discussing how the Lions would be playing Newcastle next season whilst on Talksport it was said that “Millwall are already at Wembley and will take over 35,000 fans.” These are the same fans that last year were expecting a trip to Stamford Bridge but were instead humbled and hammered 4-0 by a rampant Bradford side in our FA Cup third round replay.
Unfortunately, there’s one major blow for Bradford going into the match on Friday as Phil Parkinson has confirmed that forward James Hanson will miss out due to his recurring calf problem. The gaffer has further stated that duo Reece Burke and Billy Clarke are still doubtful for Friday’s trip to The Den but seemed confident both should make the team sheet.
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Let’s have a look back at Sunday’s result quickly even though it’s still painful. To be honest I thought Millwall deserved their victory. For once our backline looked shaky and our opposition took complete advantage of that. Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and admit in football that the better side won and despite a much better second half performance from City, Millwall looked comfortable for most of the match. Lee Gregory, Steve Morison and especially left back Joe Martin scored three fantastic goals on Saturday afternoon however the defining moment in the tie could come with that second half miss from Felipe Morais which highlighted our obvious lack of goals and clinical finishing that has been missing for most of the season.
An early goal for Bradford would be ideal on Friday night though. As we’ve seen with the likes of Brighton and Derby during their respective play-off pushes, even though both went on to lose, both got an early goal and put the opposition on the back front. That early goal is vital as it would create mass tension around The Den, the type of tension that could potentially derail the team. Although the Lions kept a second half clean sheet at Valley Parade on Sunday it was evident that if put under pressure their defensive line struggled to cope at times.
Something else to think about, who else remembers our most recent cup upsets? Defeating Watford, Wigan, Arsenal on penalties and Aston Villa over two legs in our 2013 Capital One Cup campaign acts as more inspiration as to how the Bantams could turn around this play-off semi-final. Before all of those ties back in 2013, when we were still a League Two team of course, nobody gave us a shot and how they were wrong to do so. Skip forward two years and we had our FA Cup run too where we beat more sides higher up the football pyramid in Millwall themselves, Sunderland and who could forget that 4-2 comeback win at the Bridge against then champions Chelsea.
Just remember that we love to be the underdogs.
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