Adelakun snatches late point for Iron
HAKEEB Adelakun snatched a point for Scunthorpe at the death to preserve their unbeaten away record under Mark Robins – and the Iron boss insists it was more than deserved.
Scunthorpe dominated the second half after falling a goal behind, only to be continuously denied by the brilliance of Bradford goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.
But after their marathon penalty shootout in the FA Cup in midweek, they grabbed a draw in injury time thanks to Adelakun’s goal, leaving Robins admitting it felt like a win.
“It was a deserved point, had we come away with nothing we’d have felt incredibly aggrieved,” Robins said.“It was a thoroughly deserved draw, and certainly no less than we deserved.
“Hakeeb did his job and took his goal brilliantly, and the second-half performance proved we deserved that. We attacked at will, we created plenty of chances, and it was only the keeper making some incredible saves for them that denied us.
“Had we come away from that with nothing we’d have been scratching our heads. But we got our goal, and the lads deserve credit for that after a very tough week. It feels like a win for us.”
Scunthorpe trailed at the break, after Bradford – who are now unbeaten in their last seven – took the lead when defender Rory McArdle fired home just after the half-hour mark.
The second 45 was all about the visitors though, who were only kept at bay for so long by the spectacular Pickford.
First, he denied Luke Williams one-on-one, before then tipping away a brilliant Gary McSheffrey free-kick to preserve Bradford’s lead.
Paddy Madden thought he had squared matters up with 20 minutes left, but his strike was ruled out for offside – the second goal Scunthorpe had chalked off, after Miguel Llera’s first-half header was disallowed for a foul.
The goal finally came in injury time though, when sub Adelakun fired home from an acute angle.
Boss Phil Parkinson refused to be too downbeat though, saying the result is ‘not the end of the world’. “We just couldn’t get out in the second half; some people think it’s a tactical decision to sit deep and soak it up, but we didn’t play well enough to get out.You’ve got to give Scunthorpe credit because they attacked very well,” Parkinson lamented.
“There were some great defensive performances, but we just didn’t keep the ball well enough in the second period.We got pinned back by a team who played really well.
“It’s not the end of the world, we’re still on a good run heading into a busy period.”