00:00It was quite the Tuesday evening for Bradford City as they progressed to the second round of the Carabao Cup,
00:06taking the scalp of Championship side Blackburn Rovers away from home at Ewood Park.
00:122-1 was the final score with Ibu Toure and Will Squan, both scoring within the first five minutes to make it 2-0 to Bradford.
00:22Then Dion Deneuve did pull one back for the hosts on the stroke of half-time,
00:27but in the second half, as much as Blackburn came out trying to find an equaliser, Bradford held firm to hold on for the victory.
00:34That saw them progress to the second round of the competition.
00:38And certainly after the full-time whistle, manager Graeme Alexander was very happy with the performance that his side had put out against a team from the league above them.
00:49Of course, Bradford were only in League 2 as recent as last season.
00:53And so, to go up to League 1, having made an already good start in winning their first game against Wickham Wanderers
00:58and then drawing 0-0 away at Northampton Town, to then go into the League Cup and win against the Championship side away from home
01:06just shows the progress that they have made.
01:08And of course, they were 2-0 up within the first five minutes.
01:11The goals came in minutes two and four respectively.
01:14So, it couldn't have gone much better for Bradford City.
01:18Yes, they're back in League action this weekend, but they'll certainly be riding a bit of a high following this win in the League Cup.
01:26And now, let's hear from manager Graeme Alexander, who gave his thoughts.
01:29Great start for us. Lads went out. Blackburn scored two really good goals from our perspective and played some really good football in the first half.
01:39We were composed in possession, switched to play.
01:43You know, we were much better in possession than we were on Saturday.
01:46We spoke to the players about it yesterday.
01:48We felt we didn't do ourselves justice against Northampton, but tonight we have done.
01:53We were disappointed with them scoring just before half-time, but then it becomes a question mentality.
01:59But the personality and character of this group of players is magnificent and delighted for the win, delighted for the supporters.
02:06But the players today, I'm really proud of them because that was a tough game against a really good opponent.
02:11And not one of them shook the challenge and it was great to see.
02:15Two goals inside the opening for one minute. It's sort of a start you dream about, isn't it?
02:19It is, yeah. I thought they were really well worked.
02:22The second one was from the press, which we talked about before the game.
02:26The first one was really well worked. A brilliant finish for me at the far post.
02:30And, yeah, it was just a great start for us.
02:32And I just thought it settled us down. It gave us a load of confidence in possession.
02:39I thought we didn't just try to force the issue a few times, you know, in possession.
02:44We turned out, we went the other side and there was a lot of good football in that first half.
02:49And then in the second half, we had to show a different side of us, the resilience, the togetherness, the work ethic.
02:55You know, there's a couple of times where I think they break on us 1v1 and within five seconds, we've got six players around it.
03:01The resilience in the players' minds and hearts is brilliant to see.
03:07Two very different goals as well, like I say, one from the press, one from a brilliant ball into the box.
03:11How pleasing to see the team scoring from different chances like that?
03:14Yeah, look, I think we, as long as we score more than the opponent, I'm always a happy man.
03:17But we have to add different sort of assets to our attacking threat and, you know, set pieces of something we disappointed ourselves on last season.
03:26But I think we've helped ourselves with that and improved that.
03:29I think we've got good delivery, good movement, people who want to attack it and a few new ideas that we've thrown in there.
03:35But, yeah, look, the players were up for it.
03:38You know, we saw hundreds of the Bradford fans outside a pub on the way in, gave us a little taste of what we were going to expect in here and like three and a half thousand down that end.
03:48It was brilliant.
03:49And the start we gave them was, it just, you know, it just gave them an even bigger voice for the rest of the game.
03:58And there were some really good performances tonight and six changes to the team.
04:01So, I wanted to show the squad that I value them all, I trust them all.
04:07And they didn't to this point.
04:09Well, I know, start getting into the game a bit more in the second half.
04:12Got the goal just before half time.
04:13But then to see the way the team came out, resilience shown in the second half, didn't really concede any clear-cut chances throughout that 45 shows the resilience and the strength at the back as well.
04:22Yeah, well, I think our defensive strength was really good all the way through pre-season.
04:27And Sam's made a couple of important saves tonight, but that's expected.
04:31And when you're playing against a championship club away from home, I've just looked at the data there.
04:35Our XG is higher than theirs and stuff like that.
04:37So, you know, and the scoreline, that's the most important thing.
04:40But look, we're going to have to tick a lot of boxes to continually win games.
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