\n Antoni Sarcevic and Bobby Pointon, on his 100th appearance for the club, made it seven goals each for the season with second-half efforts to see off Reading at Valley Parade.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was a really strong performance,\u201d said boss Alexander. \u201cThe first half was very tight and Sam (Walker) has made a couple of good saves.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe just had to keep our discipline in the second half and not get frustrated if there was a loose pass or miss control. Just keep getting on the ball and making things happen and make sure our press is on point to limit the chances.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI thought the second half was a real performance of control. When we took the lead and then we had more composure and scored the second goal.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur control in possession of the ball was excellent. The midfield two really linked the whole team together and outside of that there were some really good performances.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The Bantams stay second four points off leaders Cardiff, who snatched a last-gasp winner at home to Doncaster.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alexander could feel an extra impetus about the team after the midweek postponement against Port Vale.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI could sense a little bit extra percentage of excitement in the changing room before the game. There was a lot of pent-up energy for Tuesday and then ready for today.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cTo be fair to Reading, they caused us some problems in the first half with their forward line and we had to tighten up on a couple of opportunities we gave away. It was a really strong 2-0 win.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if teams are at the bottom or the top. They\u2019ve all got good players and good coaching.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI thought our mentality was really strong. We had to get back to that team that\u2019s difficult to play against and score against and I think we\u2019ve seen that in the last few games.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Sarcevic and Stephen Humphrys went off with knocks but Alexander expects both to be fine for next week\u2019s trip to Leyton Orient.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSarce got a little knock in the first half and then felt it when he stretched for a ball,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe was okay to continue to the end but we were 1-0 up and had good players to come on to the pitch anyway. There was no point in taking a risk when we\u2019ve got so many games to play.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHumps got smashed on the ankle when he tried to go through and he stiffened up within a few minutes.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was a bit disappointed we didn\u2019t take him off at the same time. But Humps felt confident he could continue.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cBut he had a shot and felt it again.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think they will both be okay for the next game. But when we\u2019ve got a bench like we have and can put good players on, it\u2019s not a problem.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Brad Halliday came in for Josh Neufville to make his first league start of the season. But there was no Andy Cook again despite returning to training this week after illness.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alexander revealed: \u201cHe was close because he trained on Wednesday. But when I watched it back, I thought he was empty physically.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWith him being out for so long, when you\u2019re empty and you\u2019ve been out for so long going into a fast-tempo game, that\u2019s when injuries can happen.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about playing for 20 minutes. We might have to make a sub after two and it\u2019s having the ability to do that.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe\u2019ll have more training time between now and the next game and then I\u2019ll just have to assess everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Antoni Sarcevic and Bobby Pointon, on his 100th appearance for the club, made it seven goals each for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-60247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}