Insufferable “banter”, the Harlem Globetrotters problem, terrible goals conceded and Kane’s corners – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s dismal defeat to Bradford City

I tried to leave it a bit longer than usual to do an in depth write up of Huddersfield Town’s 3-1 defeat to Bradford, in the hope that giving it time to settle might make it not seem quite such a bad defeat. That’s not helped though and I think this was the most embarrassing defeat I’ve seen Town fall to since the FA Cup exit to Tamworth, after we couldn’t cope with Tommy Tonks’ long throws.  

It’s rare that Town defeats bother me too much, there have been enough of them over the years to help me get used to the feeling. This defeat did hurt though, as we failed to show up for a game against one of our biggest rivals. I’d have accepted being outplayed on the day (which we were) but the way we were out fought and out thought was terribly bad. 

After spending months building trust with fans in this new-look Huddersfield Town team, a lot of that effort was undone by this game. Not that this was a result that occurred in isolation. All the issues we saw against Bradford were continuations of the issues we’d seen against Peterborough the week before and Barnsley the week before that. So small concerns have not been dealt with and have ballooned into huge weaknesses.

I still have a lot of hope for this upcoming season but that optimism took a huge dent on Saturday and it will take a while to build up confidence in this team.

Here are some more of my thoughts on this game…

A good start

It sounds weird to be talking about how good Town were in the early stages of this match but until Bradford scored, I thought we looked to be bossing the game. In fact, had Taylor’s deflected shot gone in off the crossbar rather than bounced off it, the whole game would have gone in a different direction. But it didn’t. 

In some ways, this early dominant spell only made the subsequent collapse worse, because we showed that we had the ability to dominate the game and cause problems for Bradford but our lack of intensity and desire let us down. 

But it is worth acknowledging that the whole game wasn’t a complete disaster and we did seem to have a plan that worked well until it didn’t. As Bradford are a team that don’t particularly want the ball, we perhaps could have done a bit better of controlling the game with our possession but even in this dominant spell, we weren’t carving out enough meaningful chances. Taylor’s deflected shot onto the crossbar and a speculative effort from Castledine are the only meaningful chances I remember, so we didn’t do enough to convert decent possession into proper chances.

Nobody puts Kane in the corner

Town had nine corners in the first half of this game. Nine. That meant we had nine chances to push all our big guys up field and really turn the screw on our opponent. Only the majority of those nine corners failed to beat the first man and we virtually gifted possession back to Bradford when we’ve pushed most of our players into the box and they love to play on the counter.

Herbie Kane’s corners were horrendous and I don’t really understand why. On the whole, his set pieces tend to be delivered in the right areas with a decent amount of whip and curl. But in this game he was horrible and it really affected our momentum in the game. 

I did notice that the camber on the pitch at Valley Parade left little room for a run up and the home fans are quite close to the corner taker. So perhaps he was rattled by the hostile atmosphere and struggled to adapt his run up compared to more spacious grounds. Though these aren’t good enough reasons to fail so consistently. 

Horrendous goals to concede

While I thought Bradford attacked well down the wings and moved the ball quickly, each of the goals were as much down to Town’s woeful defending as it was Bradford’s attacking prowess. The first was the result of our defence failing to notice a gap and move over to fill it. The second we conceded from a throw and the third from our own kick off from the second goal. These are the kinds of goals you shouldn’t concede.

I really don’t get how players that have looked decent in earlier games can just collectively fall to pieces. This isn’t the only time this has happened either. When Lee Grant’s Town struggle in games, they often concede multiple goals in a short space of time. At Blackpool we conceded three goals in 12 minutes. In this game it was a half hour spell before half time where all three goals were scored. I think the reason for these collapses lies more in the mentality of this squad rather than anything tactical or down to individual skill.

The timing of goals two and three was unforgivable too, with us entering first half stoppage time 1-0 down and being 3-0 down by the time they went in for the break. If Town had understood they were second best in this spell of the game, they could have kept things tight, maintained their shape and gone in only 1-0 behind and have had a chance of getting something from the game later on. 

The Harlem Globetrotters problem 

Imagine you’re the Harlem Globetrotters and you’re used to playing against stooges that will stand back and let you spin balls on your fingers and all sorts of other fancy tricks. They are technically opposition but really they’re there to just let you dance around them and show off your skills. If that was what you expected every game and suddenly you found yourself up against the Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan years then suddenly the game will feel a lot harder. It would almost feel unfair that this team isn’t letting you roll the ball around your chest and bounce it over their heads. It would feel like an outrage that you weren’t being allowed to show off your silky moves.

The above scenario is what it feels like watching Town at times. We think we’ve got the right to turn up against other teams and play exhibition football but are completely stunned when the other team doesn’t let us work our magic. They may even have a few tricks up their sleeve too. The look of confusion and frustration from Town’s players when they realise they’re in a proper game has occurred several times this season and was a hallmark of Michael Duff’s time at Town too.

Both Duff and Grant have complained that their players perform exactly as they should in training but then suddenly go missing in real games. It shouldn’t be a surprise that these players perform better when dribbling around inflatable dummies and teammates that want to help them get better. The key issue, that needs sorting out very quickly, is that we’re not doing enough of the dirty side of the game to be able to play the fancy football that we do so well in training.

The wrong selection 

I mentioned earlier that the problems we had in this game have been festering in the background for a little while. Ruben Roosken’s rotten form. Sean Roughan’s wobbly moments in defence. Lasse Sorensen’s struggles to track wingers. Kane and Ledson not being busy enough in midfield. Harness’ quality abandoning him. 

Obviously, players’ form does go up and down over the season and it often can’t be avoided. But when Lee Grant has been furnished with a squad of players that are all capable of starting games, he really shouldn’t persist with players when they’re so obviously out of form. Maybe one or two can be carried while they play their way back into form but it’s now five or six of our starting eleven that have experienced a notable drop off in the last few weeks.

It’s thin praise to say that Town improved when they introduced Alves, Redmond, Kaumu, May and (even) Radulovic. The fact we so often look better when we make changes does show we’ve got a decent squad but it also suggests Lee Grant isn’t picking the right team to start games. 

Our bench was strong and wrestled back momentum for us after Bradford had been on top for so long but it was all for naught because we were 3-0 down before these changes were made. 

Any other business 

This is the section for the things that happen at games that aren’t exactly football…

Why not blue and white stripes?

With Bradford playing in their traditional claret and gold shirts, I saw no reason why we didn’t contest this historic local derby in our traditional colours. I don’t particularly mind the cream away kit but it felt a bit wrong for us to use it for this game. And, maybe, this was the main reason we lost this game. Maybe. 

The early kickoff just meant my day was ruined sooner

Obviously, football clubs have to bend the knee to their TV paymasters, so this derby game was always likely to be moved so it could be televised. However, I don’t like these lunchtime kickoffs. As I’ve mentioned above, the other byproduct of starting early is that the game finishes earlier and it means a negative result spoils more of my Saturday. Usually the disappointment of defeat will only last from 5pm to bedtime, This early start just extended the amount of my Saturday that was spoiled by a shoddy Town performance by a few more hours.

The insufferable “banter”

Huddersfield Town’s players will return to work on Monday morning in their fancy cars, drive into a gated compound at Canalside and then go about their day’s work without going anywhere near a Bradford City fan. But Town fans won’t have the luxury of being insulated from our local rivals’ glee at this result. If you want a flavour of how grim it can be to have to live alongside Bradford fans after a result like this, watch the video below. If I was Lee Grant, I’d play this to the whole squad to help them understand how badly they let the fans down and how much pain their shoddy showing creates for fans. I don’t blame the wag in the video for his actions though, his team had a great win and he deserves a moment to gloat. I just hope the Town fans in his office get a chance for revenge when we play them at our stadium.

Now I’m not one to gloat, but I just had to do a little office admin this morning 🐓 #bcafc pic.twitter.com/z9FxjD5vxu

— Michael Dalby (@Dalb89) September 15, 2025