Graham Alexander hails ‘unbelievable header’ as Bobby Pointon sends Bradford top

Bradford manager Graham Alexander hailed goalscorer Bobby Pointon after his side went top of the League One table with a 1-0 victory at Kenilworth Road.

Pointon’s fourth-minute header was enough to separate the sides, as the Bantams kept their fifth clean sheet of the campaign to move to the summit.

And it secured City their first win at Kenilworth Road since 1968.

Alexander said: “I’m so pleased for Bobby. It was an unbelievable header. I know how much he wants to score goals. It was a fantastic way to win the game.

“It was a tough game. They’re a good team and ask you a lot of questions.

“They can take the ball in really tight areas and manipulate it out of trouble and out of the press.

“We found it difficult, certainly in the first half, to stop the flow for our team. I think the goal maybe just made us a little bit protective of the game.

“Our distances were better in the second half. I thought we were much more controlled and committed into our press.

“We were just a little bit sloppy in possession a few times. If we were in control of the game, I think we would have seen it through easily.”

It was Bradford who struck first, Hayden Matthews’ deep cross seeing Pointon rise unchallenged for his second goal of the campaign.

Luton threatened a leveller in the first half, Kasey Palmer curling narrowly wide and Emilio Lawrence shooting straight at goalkeeper Jon McCracken.

The second period saw Town snuffed out by their opponents, until Gideon Kodua’s late shot was saved, Jordan Clark fired wide, before ex-City loanee Harrison Ashby was sent off in stoppage time for kicking out, his second booking.

Boss Jack Wilshere added: “Frustrating, disappointing, a tough one to take as I thought in the first half we did so many good things.

“We arrived in the final third so many times, with what we spoke about doing.

“We probably could make those chances a little bit better and have more quality in the final third, but I thought there was an improvement from the last game where we made better decisions, we were just maybe a little bit late or a bit too far in front of someone.

“Then in the second half I felt like we didn’t get going. I thought that we got sucked in a little bit to what they wanted, and they’re good at it.

“This is not me digging them out or saying anything bad about them as we knew that going into the game, that they’re good at breaking up play, they’re good at delaying things, they’re really, really good at defending, they don’t concede many goals and I thought that we got sucked into that a little bit.”