7:40am Monday 6th September 2010
By Simon Parker
Peter Taylor today insisted the goals would come after City fired their latest blank.
Saturday’s Valley Parade loss to Port Vale – their fourth on the trot – sunk Taylor’s side to third from bottom. And just as worryingly, they failed to hit the target for the third league game running.
City have scored just twice in five League Two outings – and not managed to net from open play since Tom Adeyemi fired them in front at leaders Shrewsbury on the first day.
They are also missing last season’s top scorer James Hanson, who will be sidelined for a few weeks with the hamstring injury he suffered against Southend.
Despite the result, Taylor saw positive signs and still believes his side can get back on the rails.
“I’m fully aware of the goals we’ve scored and I think the most important thing is to try and create chances,” he said.
“Against Stevenage and Southend, we didn’t really create too much, but I think we did that a bit more (on Saturday).
“It is a concern for me but if we create more, there’s a fair chance we might start scoring a goal. How we didn’t score just before half-time and then in the second half amazed me.
“The performance was a lot better than the other two at home and that’s a plus for me. I thought we did a lot better than the officials, who got it wrong on a few occasions.”
Taylor was angry that referee David Coote did not spot a Vale handball before giving the corner which led to their first-half opener. Both sides also felt they should have had penalties.
But the Bantams boss had no excuses for Vale’s “comical” second, when Jon McLaughlin miscontrolled Tommy Doherty’s poor backpass to gift the goal away.
“You’re trying to chase the game and that’s going to kill you whether you’re low on confidence or not,” said Taylor.
“But we’ve got to stick together and keep working hard on the training field. We did that this week and I saw some good signs. It’s up to the players to keep doing that again.
“Nobody’s going to give you anything in football. You’ve got to work extremely hard to deserve it.”
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