DAVID Hopkin ruefully reflected on City’s heaviest home loss of the season today and admitted: We were second best in everything.

A 4-0 thrashing from Southend at Valley Parade dropped the Bantams to second-from-bottom in League One and three points from safety.

Hopkin was frustrated at an awful performance as City failed to bounce back from last week’s 3-0 loss at Barnsley.

Southend scored first inside two minutes and never allowed the home side to get back into the game.

Hopkin said: “It’s disappointing. The manner we conceded the goals was poor.

“All the things that we’ve worked on – being hard to beat and going the extra yard for your team-mate – weren’t there today.

“Conceding a goal after 90 seconds was very poor.

“It’s difficult (when that happens) and you’ve got to compose yourself and get on with the game.

“We tried to attack all the time to get the goal (back) as quick as we could and we ended up conceding a second. We could have conceded a couple more.

“We were second best all over the pitch. Southend came here and did a job on us.

“They have got three or four new players in and you could see they got a lift from it. We never got a foothold in the game.

“They made sure Jack Payne, Bally (David Ball), George (Miller) and Eoin Doyle didn’t get much service. Credit to them but we need to do things better.

“We need to get back to basics again because that’s two games when we haven’t been doing it.”