Cardiff City boss Brian Barry-Murphy was happy with much of his side’s performance despite losing their first League One game of the season.
The Bluebirds finally tasted defeat at the hands of a rampant Bradford City, who launched their way into the lead through a Tommy Leigh rocket which was added to by Antoni Sarcevic and Josh Neufville, to propel the Bantams to the top of the third tier. Despite a late goal from substitute Callum Robinson, Cardiff could not mount a comeback and slipped into fourth place after eight matches played.
Barry-Murphy Breaks Down Loss
Speaking to his club’s media team following the loss in the Welsh capital, the Irish manager was pleased despite the result. He said:
“I thought we created good chances. There were some clear-cut chances in the first half. Rubin [Colwill]chips to the back post with Cian Ashford, Yousef [Salech]had a good header. But you need to give credit to the opponent sometimes. They defended really well in close situations.
“I was pleased with a lot of today’s performance. Obviously we’re never happy with the result; we want to win and we have incredible support here. We played the game in a pretty aggressive manner, created a lot of good chances like we have in previous games.
“But there’s going to be a lot of ups and downs across the course of this season. Our players will take a lot more from today than they have from previous weeks and I think it’s very important that inside the dressing room as a group we can remain calm and focus on improving the players.”
Cardiff have a quick turnaround to their next game, with a Tuesday night matchup with Premier League side Burnley in the third round of the EFL Cup, and will head back up to Lancashire on the weekend as they face Wigan Athletic, who were beaten heavily in their derby against Bolton Wanderers.
Writers’ View
This loss will be a valuable lesson for Cardiff City going further into the season. A loss against a very strong Bradford City side has proven that these title favourites are not invincible and will call on them to redeem this loss in front of their own fans. Ideally, it would have been the Wigan Athletic game that came next to get them back on the right track, but have to face a Burnley side which will want to give themselves a chance at silverware in the League Cup.
