Bounced out by Bradford City

A new manager bounce is one of football’s great mysteries.

There is no logical reason why a set of bad players should immediately start winning matches just because there’s been a change of boss, but they often do.

By all accounts Bradford City were abysmal in their previous two outings, losing 3-2 at a Walsall side who played with 10 men for 86 minutes and then suffering a 5-1 tonking at Pompey which could have been much worse.

So Gary Bowyer took charge ahead of the visit of Posh and the transformation was instant, aided and abetted by a hopeless display by Darren Ferguson’s men.

It could all have been different had Matt Godden’s early header from Marcus Maddison’s fabulous leftwing cross not been wiped out, wrongly according to Ferguson, for offside. Who knows how that would have affected a team fighting for their League One lives?

In all likelihood it wouldn’t have changed much because as soon as the home side realised Posh were not creating much despite a healthy amount of possession they caused problems to a defence and goalkeeper who look shorn of confidence. Jacob Butterfield, from 20 yards, Eoin Doyle and Lewis O’Brien all found the same corner of Conor O’Malley’s net between the 70th and 84th minutes to render Marcus Maddison’s late penalty conversion meaningless.

Butterfield had earlier struck the crossbar with a sweet free kick, but Posh went on to dominate possession in the first-half without creating a single scoring opportunity.

After the break Daniel Lafferty’s header and Maddison’s deflected set-piece forced home ‘keeper Richard O’Donnell into fine saves, but once City took the lead soon after Posh folded rather worryingly.

Ferguson blamed ill-discipline for this defeat and for his own frustration at not receiving his own post-appointment bounce.