Hopkin furious after Bradford draw at Peterborough

Posted Sunday, November 18, 2018 by PA

A furious David Hopkin blamed technology failure for Peterborough’s equaliser against his Bradford side in the 1-1 draw at the ABAX Stadium.

The bottom-placed visitors, who had lost their previous six league matches, had taken a deserved 10th minute lead through Anthony O’Connor before Ivan Toney equalised for Posh 16 minutes into the second half.

The leveller enraged Hopkin, who was prevented from making a change moments earlier.

He said: “I wanted to make a sub to kill the game. And then obviously it’s an offside goal.

“The fourth official was shouting at the linesman to come back because he couldn’t hear him – that I’d like to make a sub.

“But great credit to every one of the players, I thought they were magnificent. They ran their socks off. I asked them for that.

“I’m disappointed to leave with one point, but it’s a point and stops the rot. Before the game if someone had said you’d come here and get a point I’d have been quite happy, but I’m disappointed we’ve not got three.

“Jack Payne and David Ball played fantastic in the wide areas for me. They worked really hard. You can sense the quality that Jack has got when he is switching the ball to Bally.

“I’m delighted with the performance . I said to the players, ‘that’s the standards we need. That’s the energy levels we need to play at’.”

O’Connor’s fourth goal of the season came via a low finish past goalkeeper Aaron Chapman after a pass inside the area from Hope Akpan.

Posh responded by dominating possession before half-time substitute Toney latched onto a fine Marcus Maddison pass and steered the ball past Bradford goalkeeper Richard O’Donnell.

Peterborough manager Steve Evans gave short shrift to the comments \about technology, responding: “If technology worked David Hopkin would be in the stand for his abuse of the referee.”

Posh slip to fourth in the table, and a frustrated Evans added: “Bradford started better than us because we had too many in a Posh shirt who thought this would just be three points.

“They deservedly took the lead, but from there on after we laid siege into the Bradford half. We’ve had enough crosses in, and we’re unfortunate on the balance of play to be behind at half-time.

“The second half, all bar the final ball from wide positions into the box, I’ve never been involved in such a one-sided game where I’ve not won. We’ve absolutely battered them.

“Credit to Bradford their lads stood up, they fought hard and got an undeserved point. If we had made chances for our strikers I think we would have scored. We go away hurting that we’ve thrown two points right out the window.”