Gary Bowyer talks up James Vaughan after striker seals point for Bradford

Posted Sunday, December 01, 2019 by PA

Gary Bowyer hailed striker James Vaughan after his header salvaged a point for Bradford at Macclesfield.

The 31-year-old headed home late in the day to secure a 1-1 draw and deny Town a first win since mid-October.

And the Bantams boss was delighted to see Vaughan get on the score sheet after a glaring first-half miss from six yards when the game was goalless.

“That’s the sign of a good striker – when they miss they don’t let it affect them,” he said. “He went again and got the next one.

“It was a wonderful goal to get back into it from Vaughany. It was a great free-kick.

“We spoke about the areas to hit for him and fortunately the practice paid off.”

The visitors could consider themselves somewhat unlucky to fall behind to Jak McCourt’s penalty, given their early dominance.

But Bowyer insisted the draw was not an opportunity missed for his team at a club with well-publicised off-field problems.

“People will look at it like that but Macclesfield have lost only once here in the last 14 games,” he said. “That shows what a difficult place it is.

“The manager and his staff have done brilliantly with them. It’s well-documented what’s going on here but the way they run around for the manager and each other is terrific.

“Hopefully the situation can get sorted out.”

Macclesfield manager Daryl McMahon, whose side had Connor Kirby sent off late on, was also happy to take a point from the Silkmen’s third straight draw.

And he felt they were deserving of some reward for their efforts, despite their winless run extending to seven games.

“It was a tough game against a very good side,” he said. “I’m pleased with the efforts and the application of the players.

“I think everyone knows this is a tough place to come, we’ve played most of the big sides in the league here now and we’ve done well against them.

“Bradford started on the front foot, they’ve got some really good players and we were hanging on to their coat-tails early on, but the group I’ve got fight hard, we work hard and they got into the game.

“We know we will always create chances but in general play Bradford had the better of it early on.

“It was a good header from James, I’ll have to see it back to see how he got in there, and how we gave away a needless free-kick. But these things happen and we had chances to win the game.

“Anyone who knows me knows I want to win and we know we’ve got the players to do that.”