Graham Alexander hails ‘brilliant night’ for Bradford after beating MK Dons

Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2024 by PA

Graham Alexander can see positive signs from improving Bradford after they made it back-to-back wins.

Goals from Matty Platt, Calum Kavanagh, Andy Cook and Clarke Oduor earned an emphatic 4-0 victory over MK Dons at Valley Parade.

That followed up the weekend win at Wrexham and Bradford’s former MK manager Alexander was delighted with what he saw.

He said: “It’s been a brilliant night for the team, the supporters and the staff.

“We’ve been through a difficult period. I still think we’ve got to improve certain things but following on from Saturday, which was a fantastic win at a near-impossible place, to beat another good team 4-0 shows more good signs that it’s coming together.

“The confidence in front of goal was a little bit low. But the belief in what we were doing has always been there for the players.

“We just haven’t had that final touch. If we could find that, I just felt we were a good team waiting to happen and I think we’ve shown that in the last two games.

“I understand there’s still work to be done but let’s not take anything away from the boys. They’ve been fantastic against two very good teams in League Two.”

Alexander was pleased to see four different scorers rather than just Cook.

“It’s something we’ve looked at not to rely just on one guy because it’s too much pressure on Andy.

“He’s a team player and obviously wants to score as a proper number nine. But just looking to him is not right.

“It makes it easier for the opposition to defend against us as a team and Andy as well.”

MK Dons manager Mike Williamson thought his side did well to keep going when the game was gone.

He said: “The scoreline is a difficult one to take but I’m proud of the boys.

“It was a difficult pitch to play on, I thought we controlled it and the first goal was against the run of play.

“We’ve got to be humble in defeat but the character and willingness was out there. The heads didn’t drop and they wanted to move the ball.

“We made a few more longer passes than I would have preferred but that was the nature of the players wanting to take the game by the scruff of the neck and change it.

“It was a bit of a crazy football game. It was as if they had an invisible wall in front of their goal.

“We had a few chances, especially in the second half, but every attack they had seemed to go in.

“The scoreline was hugely disappointing but I’m really happy with the performance, the spirit and the grit of the boys.”