Crewe Alex v Bradford City 24/25 Preview - The Conditions

This opening section took a late rewrite given the weather that has taken place over the last 48 hours. The Alex will be playing 2 opponents, should this game go ahead. The first opponent is Bradford City, stuttering and without their top scorer. And their 2nd opponent will be the weather, which will include driving rain and fierce winds. The conditions are going to be a real leveller and whoever can master them will emerge winners. Don't expect a flowing game though. Here is my preview of the Bantams trip to Gresty Road:

One Man Show

Bradford's reliance on Andy Cook to score goals has been ridiculous since the day he joined them. He signed on the 27th January 2021 and since then, Bradford have played 179 league games, scoring 222 times over those games. Cook has scored 75 goals in that time, an incredible 34% of their goals in that span. He's a very good striker, which goes without saying I suppose.

Well, that would all be pretty scary. If he was going to play against the Alex. Good news is, he isn't. He picked up his 5th booking of the season on Tuesday, which rules him out of this game. Now, this is clearly a huge boost. He's their targetman, their talisman, their go-to guy. The next highest scorers in their team behind him are 4 players on 2 goals each, 2 of which are defenders.

But, in saying all of this, it would be very easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. No doubt their chances of win have gone up with Cook being out. But in Alex Pattison, Jamie Walker, Bobby Pointon and a couple of others, they do have players who can cause the Alex problems. They need to be on their guard, even if they won't be facing L2's top scorer.

Tired

The Alex going out of the FA Cup hurt. A lot. But even I can't deny that it's given them an advantage going into this game in particular. They moved their game with Carlisle forward to last Saturday, the same time Bradford were heading to Morecambe for their 2nd Round tie. Whilst it affected their performance at Brunton Park, with them looking tired in the latter stages, things completely flip around now.

The Alex wrapped up their game with Carlisle at 2:30pm last Saturday. In the 6 days and 22 hours since that moment, Bradford have played 2 games, a demoralising defeat at Morecambe and a scrappy draw at home to Barrow on Tuesday that will have done little to lift their confidence. The Alex almost certainly will be fresher in the latter stages of this game and that could be the key factor.

Away Record

Unlike the Alex's last home opponents Notts County, who were unbeaten away coming into that game, Bradford have had real issues away from home. Since beating MK Dons on the opening day, they are 1-3-4 on the road, with their solitary win being at struggling Tranmere.

In fact, most of their results away from home have been against poor sides. Morecambe(24th), Cheltenham(16th) and Colchester(21st) have been where they got their 3 draws. Put them against a top half side away from home and they have lost all of them, MK aside. Couple that with the Alex's excellent recent record against the Bantams at Gresty Road(5-1-2 since 2011) and this is a great chance for the Alex to keep the points rolling in.

Inconsistent

Perhaps the biggest difference between these 2 sides is consistency. The Alex have it, Bradford do not. The Bantams so far in the league this season have gone unbeaten in 3, lost 3 of 4, gone unbeaten in 5 and gone winless in 5. They have proven themselves capable of picking up points in quick succession, but not the consistency needed to pick them up over 5-10 game stretches, which is what promotion contenders do. Let's hope the Alex don't kick start a run for them.

Unbeaten Run

Whisper it quietly, but the Alex are up to 7 without defeat at Gresty Road now, to go along with their 9 game unbeaten run home and away. With their home run, they've got a long way to match their run from February to October of 2023, when they got it up to 14. However, you could argue that their current unbeaten run is slightly more impressive than that one. During that 14 game run, they were trailing late in several of them and needed late comebacks to avoid defeat.

In this last 7 games at Gresty Road, they've trailed twice for a combined total of 45 minutes whilst leading for 299, haven't gone in behind at HT in any of them and they've outscored the opposition by a 12-2 margin. They are looking formidable right now and whilst Bradford represent a tricky opponent, there is no reason they can't keep it going.

End the Drought

I'm going to make this a point until it's no longer one. The Alex have failed to win a game in December for the last 2 seasons. They went 0-0-3 in 22/23, with 2 games being postponed. Then last season they went 0-2-3. The last December game they won was away at Morecambe on December 29th 2021. The last December home game they won was a 2-0 win over Lincoln on December 7th 2021. So, let's get this ended straight away by picking up 3 points in this one.

Ref Watch

Matt Corlett

In what is becoming a running theme, the Alex are getting another pretty green ref. Ok, he is in his 2nd season as a ref, but he's only done 31 EFL matches, so he still lacks experience. His love of a yellow card makes me nervous with 3 players still hovering over the 5 booking threshold with 2 games left to go.

2024/25 Record: 13 games(5 League One, 4 League Two, 1 FA Cup, 2 League Cup, 1 National League), 73 yellows, 2 reds

Last Game: Shrewsbury Town 1-2 Blackpool, EFL League One, Tuesday 3rd December 2024, 4 yellows

Crewe Alex Record: 1-0-0, 2 yellows

Injuries/Absences

Crewe Alex

Chris Long serves the final game of his ban and whilst Conor Thomas is getting closer, it seems he's still a couple of weeks away. Hemmings and Robinson obviously remain out, but surprise surprise, the the prognosis on Bogle sounds less positive than it did last week, meaning he's likely to be out for this game. In a combined 36 games between Long and Bogle, they'll have been in the squad 13 games. 36.1% of availability. That's funny.

Bradford

As mentioned, the big absence for the Bantams is the suspended Cook. Antoni Sarcevic, Tyreik Wright, Cheick Diabate and Tyler Smith have all been missing through injury recently, so could be out, but they're generally in solid health, with Aden Baldwin and Alex Pattison both recently returned from absences.

Team

There are 3 changes I'd like to see, 2 of which I'm almost certain will happen, 1 which should won't but probably won't. The first 2 are easy ones and that's putting in Ryan Cooney at RWB and Jamie Knight-Lebel at RCB. Billington and Connolly didn't impress against Carlisle and there is no justification for keeping their places.

Then in midfield, I want to see Jack Powell come in for Joel Tabiner. Tabiner has looked really off it lately and they have to find ways of getting Powell back involved more. Even if he can only give you 45-60 minutes, that's fine. I don't expect it to happen, but that would be my choice. The rest of the team stays the same.

Score Prediction

I'd like a clean sheet if at all possible. They've only kept 2 in their last 8 games, although they do have 5 in their last 7 at home. They are on a 14 game scoring streak, so if they can keep that going and keep a clean sheet, then the 3 points should be in the bag. Right? Right?! I'm going for a narrow low scoring win.

Crewe Alexandra 1-0 Bradford City