Shrewsbury Town have lost further ground on the top two in League One due to a goalless draw at Bradford City on Thursday night.

The first chance of the game came after just five minutes as Tony McMahon swung a corner towards Timothee Dieng, who headed just wide of the Shrews' post.

At the other end, the visitors worked the ball to Alex Rodman, who lined himself up and rattled a fierce drive towards goal which Colin Doyle did well to keep out.

In a busy first half, the best efforts fell to Alex Gilliead, whose fierce first-time drive was tipped over by Dean Henderson, and Jon Nolan, who was clean through on goal but fired straight at Doyle.

Shrewsbury stepped up a gear after the restart and came close to opening the scoring on 55 minutes when Rodman ran at the opposition defence and rifled just over the bar from 25 yards.

Nolan and Gilliead then traded efforts at both sides before the Shrews went down to 10 men on the hour as Omar Beckles was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Nathaniel Knight-Percival.

Despite going a man down, Paul Hurst's charges continued to press and enjoyed several more opportunities to open the scoring, but ultimately they could not break through the Bantams' defence and the points ended up being shared between the two sides.

The result means that Shrewsbury are now four points off the top two of Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers, while Bradford sit 12th in the standings, eight points adrift of the playoffs.

BRADFORD CITY (4-4-1-1): Doyle; Tony, Kilgallon, Knight-Percival, Warnock (Chicksen 73'); Gilliead, Dieng, Guy, Robinson; Brunker (Patrick 76'), Wyke

SHREWSBURY TOWN (4-1-4-1): Henderson; Bolton, Nsiala, Sadler, Beckles; B. Morris (C. Morris 63'); Whalley, Nolan, Godfrey, Rodman; Payne (John-Lewis 81')