Bradford boss Graham Alexander “pleased” as Bantams claim important pre-season win

The latest West Yorkshire sport headlines, from Daniel Wales.

Transcript

00:00Bradford City manager Graeme Alexander was extremely pleased as his side picked up a

00:062-0 victory over Middlesbrough in pre-season at Valley Parade.

00:10Yeah, pleased with the performance, really tough game, really good team we played against

00:17there, make you work in and out of possession there, the players stuck to the task, continually

00:22try to press, turn the ball over, they broke through us a few times because they've got

00:26excellent players but what pleased me most was the players never went passive, we stayed

00:31on the front foot, we stayed trying to turn the ball over and got rewards from that, both

00:36the goals have come from us, turning the ball over in good areas and then going straight

00:40for the heart of the opposition, so another physical test for us, for the players that

00:45played, obviously some played the whole game, some lads went 60-70 minutes and it was a good

00:51shift from, so we needed that, we needed that blow out and that was a good exercise for

00:56us.

00:57There's been plenty of tactical work over the summer so far and obviously the lads are playing

01:00themselves really well tonight, you see them going to the last kick of the game, obviously

01:03getting that goal with the last kick, it must be really pleasing to you, even in a friendly

01:06that desire and attitude is still there from everyone.

01:08Yeah, look, we've got a way of playing and we've got a way of handling ourselves, I think

01:12we've got to respect ourselves.

01:14And Leeds United's Ethan Ampadu was pleased to get minutes in pre-season ahead of the

01:19Whites return to the Premier League.

01:21Yeah, it was good, obviously, a little bit extended with it being 260 minutes and normally

01:26half-60 minutes, but no, it was nice, especially after Saturday, pre-season was all about getting

01:32mileage in the legs, getting the fitness back, so it was good and it was good opposition,

01:36they made it difficult, we had to adapt, there was times where we wanted to keep the ball

01:41more and we didn't, maybe at the end disappointed to concede, it might be my fault, I told Chas

01:49to play it back soon, but no, the main thing in pre-season is getting the fitness and it's

01:53always nice to win.

01:54Yeah, it was a pretty intense few minutes out there for you and how important is that

01:58for the rest of the squad though?

01:59A lot massively, that's what pre-season for, we knew it was going to be a hard training camp,

02:02we had a good decent day yesterday, followed by today, so it's been good work.

02:09appearances for some of those new faces out there, how impressed have you been with them

02:12so far?

02:13No, very impressed, not just me but all the lads.

02:15That should be the great version, make sure you go home to the imprisoned one day when

02:19Using the