Bradford Reserves 1 By Far The Greatest Team Reserves 4

Well this certainly made a change tonight, met up with the lads from the West Yorkshire Supporters club for a drink before the match, then drove off to the ground and parked inside the stadium, bonus!!
Strode into the ground (for free) got me programme for 10p (ok programme is probably stretching it but a bit of paper with the teams on anyway).
Before the match we were hoping that Rogers might make an appearance, the plan was to stock up on chocolate bars and hope he got to take a throw in in front of us so we could walk over and offer them to him, but one glance at the team sheet dashed our hopes. We put out quite a strong team, which wouldn't have looked out of place in the first team. Full line up as follows
1 Gerrard
2 Perchy
3 Gippo (Padula)
4 Beaumont
5 Fernandez
6 Roberts
7 Friio
8 Boppy
9 Johnno
10 One Decent
11 Evo

We started out pretty poorly allowing Bradford to take control of the game. The team seemed unwilling to try and play football resorting to hoofing it up the field or crossing it from way out rather than trying to get behind the defence. One thing I did notice with it being a reserve match is how loud Gerrard shouts, he was constantly screaming at the players telling them where to go. Was great to see Lester back and he had a decent enough game but he doesn't quite look fully fit yet, needs to have a few more games under his belt yet and maybe a place on the subs bench in the next week or so, saying that though he was linking up well with Johnno on a few occasions the final ball just wasn't quite right though.
Today was the first time I'd seen Gino play also and he certainly put in a few crunching tackles, at times he just seemed reluctant to get too far forward and take on the full back, when he did get in the Bradford half he'd cross the ball way too early (a common failing at Forest). He also seems to have a knack of getting caught out of position, playing in the centre and allowing the Bradford right winger way too much space to run at us. Evans had a decent enough game putting in some hard tackles (some of them made me wince when I heard the noise he made as he connected with the player)he also scored 2 decent goals, both from free kicks.
We were soon 1-0 down to Bradford and not looking like scoring, in fact Bradford were all over us and I couldn't see how we could break them down. They took their goal well, Gerrard was off his line and the Bradford player lobbed him from about halfway inside the Forest half, was a really well taken goal. Then near the end of the first half we got a fortunate free kick just outside the box. Up popped Evo to curl it into the bottom right hand corner just a few minutes later Bopp made it 2-1 (unfortunately I didn't see this as I was cheering Daley as he warmed up, it was also the only thing Bopp did all game I can't even recall seeing him involved at all before or after the goal).
Second half and a much improved Forest performance, we were totally in control and had 2 more goals another Evo free kick and a well taken header from Friio (although I thought the Bradford defence was pretty weak defending it)
Daley played out on the wing for most of the second half, only moving up front when Johnno went off and I must say the lad looks class, quick and got some great touches on the ball. Given time this lad will definitely be a star at Forest. I'd also like to say well done to Perchy who had a very good game, he must be back in Meggo's pans shortly (also the way he was bossing Daley about, telling him where to go really impressed me).
All in all was an enjoyable night out, made a change to be able to watch a match without being too concerned about the result and just being able to concentrate on the football.