Bradford City boss Mark Hughes accentuates the positives despite late defeat to Swindon Town
FRUSTRATED he may have ultimately been, but Mark Hughes saw plenty of encouraging signs in his Bradford City team’s narrow loss to Swindon Town.
Jack Payne’s stoppage-time penalty earned the visitors a dramatic 2-1 win, striking the killer blow in the sixth minute of added time to leave Hughes still looking for his first win as Bantams boss.
But the former Manchester City and Wales manager still found reasons to be cheerful.
“Credit to the lads, I thought they were excellent today,” Hughes said of his players.
“Everybody could see that we were working on certain things – passing, creating chances – certainly in the first half.
“At the quarter-of-an-hour mark we had three or four really good chances. The reality is we need to put those away.
“It is disappointing for the group because we deserved something from the game, but overall I am really pleased with what the lads produced.”
Bradford made an encouraging start and could have scored twice in the first nine minutes, Swindon goalkeeper Jojo Wollacott saving well from close-range efforts from Callum Cooke and Andy Cooke, while Caolan Lavery curled an effort just wide.
Gareth Evans scored the first goal of the Hughes reign when he fired home from the edge of the area in the 18th minute.
Swindon responded three minutes later through Harry McKirdy’s 17th goal of the season.
That was how it stayed Alex Bass fouled Ellis Iandolo to concede the decisive penalty which Payne held his nerve to convert.
Bradford City: Bass, Hendrie, Songo’o, O’Connor, Foulds, Watt, Evans (Sutton 82), Gilliead, Cooke (Daly 90), Lavery (Robinson 75), Cook. Unused substitutes: O’Donnell, Threlkeld, Kelleher, Pereira.
Swindon Town: Wollacott, Odimayo (Baudry 71), O’Brien, Cooper, Hunt, Aguiar, Reed, Iandolo, McKirdy, Davison, Williams (Payne 77).Unused substitutes: Ward, Mitchell-Lawson, East, Parsons.
Referee: Paul Howard (London).