Bradford City 0 Port Vale 0: Stuart McCall steps up striker search

Nine years on from a 1-1 opening-day encounter against Macclesfield in his first stint as Bradford City manager, the Bantams playing legend had to be content with a stalemate.

It was a game City should have won, but went perilously close to losing, Port Vale substitutes Christopher Mbamba and Quentin Pereira fluffing their lines in front of the Kop in stoppage time.

Which is why McCall will step up his search for a striker before the transfer window shuts at the end of the month, the emergency loan system having been closed for good.

The conundrum facing the City chief, he admits, is does he act in haste to supplement his trio of forwards in James Hanson, Billy Clarke and Huddersfield loanee youngster Jordy Hiwula or wait for that elusive right man to come along?

Goal-poachers are in very short supply and new Vale manager and former Leeds and Sheffield United player Bruno Ribeiro admits he is still one short in spite of having made 13 signings in the summer.

City scored just 55 goals in 46 games last season yet still finished in the play-offs.

They look like having to do it the hard way again, but are capable of matching the efforts under departed manager Phil Parkinson.

For there were plenty of positives for new owners Stefan Rupp and Edin Rahic, tracked all day by a German documentary film crew.

Not least was the way a thrown-together defence comfortably snuffed out the Vale attack spearheaded by Rigino Cicilia with a three-man support crew.

McCall took the blame for pushing Nathan Clarke and midfield man Timothee Dieng too hard in training, resulting in calf strains which added to the problem of having Rory McArdle and Stephen Darby already ruled out of the opening month through injury.

New signing Matthew Kilgallon was deemed only fit enough for a place on the bench.

It resulted in French signing Romain Vincelot dropping back to his old centre-back position in style alongside Nathaniel Knight-Percival with James Meredith and Tony McMahon at full-back.

McMahon was proud to be handed the captain’s armband, but when asked if the back four had done any training as a unit, he responded: “Nope, we just got chucked in.

“We just did a little team shape on Friday about how they were going to play. We didn’t really have time to work on it.

“But we’re all good players and Vince has played there before and it was just nice when he slotted in and we kept a clean sheet and Doyler (goalkeeper Colin Doyle) didn’t really have a save to make.”

McMahon and company also enjoyed support from first-year professional and debutant Daniel Devine, showing maturity in snuffing out Vale attacks with timely interventions and playing simple but effective passes to get City on the front foot.

They would also have been more comfortable had City converted at least one of a host of chances they created in the first hour, Hanson being the chief culprit despite his aerial dominance of the Vale back line.

In that time, not only did City force 10 corners but got great service from the wings through Felipe Morais and Mark Marshall, for whom biggest compliment was that the departed Kyle Reid’s absence was not noticed.

It was from one of Marshall’s crosses, deep to the far post, that City went closest to scoring, Clarke lobbing the ball over goalkeeper Ben Alnwick only to see it strike the bar.

Overall, both sides were easy on the eye, McMahon saying of McCall’s approach: “He wants us to play out from the back and play through the lines. But you see we mixed it up.

“At times, we had to go long because they were pressing us and we had to go direct to Hans. I don’t think he lost a header all day.

“We don’t want to be one-dimensional. We want to play football, get the ball out wide and put balls in the box – that’s the manager’s style. The lads have taken on board everything he’s said. We could have easily won 3-0 or 4-0 and nobody would have questioned it.”

Bradford city: Doyle, McMahon, Vincelot, Knight-Percial, Meredith; Morais (Anderson 69), Devine, Law, Marshall; B Clarke (Hiwula 69), Hanson. Unused substitutes: Webb-Foster, Kilgallon, Boateng.

Port Vale: Alnwick, Purkiss, Streete, Smith, Knops; Tavares, Grant; Thomas (Pereira 57), Foley, De Freitas (Mbamba 57); Cicilia (Forrester 76). Unused substitutes: Mac-Intosh, Hooper, Amoros.

Referee: D Deadman (Cambs).

Man of the match: Romain Vincelot.