Bradford City crept into the early top seven in League Two this weekend by virtue of a 3-0 win against struggling Oldham Athletic.

After two draws, the Bantams are up and running and there are plenty of parallels to draw between them and Sunderland in the league above. Both are big teams for their respective levels, both expect to do well and yet both started with a draw.

Their respective squads are strong for the level they’re in as well, with Bradford boasting fine footballers such as Sean Scannell, as well as experienced forwards such as Clayton Donaldson. One final link between them and the Black Cats is James Vaughan, a man who has now played for both.

Can he kickstart his career after falling down the divisions? We look at the weekend’s evidence to find out.

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It’s worth noting that a win against Oldham is perhaps a banker at the moment. The Latics look awful and are going to struggle for much of the season. They did have more efforts than Bradford, but the Bantams put in a much more complete performance from front to back.

They lined up in a flat 4-4-2 formation, with Donaldson partnering Vaughan up front. Both grabbed a goal, Vaughan after just four minutes of the encounter in front of a bumper 14,447 crowd.

The former Everton man was busy for much of the afternoon and came off after 76 minutes with shortly after Sean Scannell had added a third. He’d had a busy afternoon, getting three shots away. Bradford managed a total of 12, meaning Vaughan had 25% of their efforts.

His accuracy wasn’t astounding, only one of his three efforts were on target. However, some supporters might feel it’s important for a striker to get chances to miss, rather than simply having the odd one on target.

Vaughan made himself busy in the area as well, getting four touches against a shaky Oldham side. He might have managed another one or two as the game died away, but Shay McCartan took his place and interestingly got two touches in the box himself during his cameo.

Bradford are by no means a long ball side, but they did look for Vaughan and partner Donaldson with a few direct moves. He won 58% of his aerial duels, a better than average return for a forward.

Overall, James Vaughan did enough to convince Bradford fans he’s been worth the investment. One game against a team likely to struggle all season is not going to be enough to make a firm judgement on, but he scored a goal, got chances and put himself about plenty.

If Bradford keep getting the ball into him in the right areas, he could well be back in the third-tier next season.