The Voice - Match preview #23: Mansfield Town vs Bradford City Thursday 1st January 2026 15:00

with Pointon and Sarcevic we are a top six side. Bang average without both.

 

And here endeth the debate!

 

His downfall here was lack of awareness of surroundings. He’s been best player twice recently though.

i don’t think any player deserved better than a 3/10 or 4/10 yesterday though - dire all around!

 

He has credit in the bank though. Byrne has none at all. Was shite in L2, let alone L1. Zero wins in games he’s featured in this year tells us everything. He’s National League standard, and that’s in a back four where not shown up for being slower than Robert Molenaar

 

He didn’t cut it. We lost momentum when he played. We carried him and Kelly. byrne is by far the worst CB at the club though, at least Kelly is a solid unit.

 

No , absolutely Kav is crap and won’t get any better. He looked to have the hump in the pre game line up as if not interested. Bottom L2 at best . All our shortcomings were on display yesterday inc GA’s .
Wright on the right in the first half with Kav on the other side , don’t get me going , it was nonsense. I think he was there to try and cover for Byrnes shortcomings and lack of pace , which in combination ruined our entire right side .

Wholesale changes needed to squad and quick .

They looked utterly jaded from 1-11 bar Metcalf .

 

Let’s not go overboard because other than the odd cameo Bobby isn’t doing much to attract attention when we are away from VP in my book.

 

tyriek

 

OK yesterday may have been a one off on performance levels, but our Away League form is poor DDDWLL in the last 6 away games.

Add in cup games over the last 2 months and we shipped in 3 at Doncaster, 3 at Bolton, and lost to Cheltenham in the FA cup.

1 win in 9 away games - 5 goal scored and 15 conceded unless my maths is out, not good is it.

 

In his post match interview on BBC Max Power talks about the Blackpool match and states" the team has got to get back in the saddle".
Donkey rides planned for Sunday morning?

 

Possibly 1 or 2 donkeys on the pitch as well
Make a change from seagulls

 

As far as Cook is concerned not necessarily,if he goes out on loan till June and does well proves he is back to is best then he could figure next year. Or we could get a fee

 

The Bolton away game in the league we should have been dead and buried at half time as well. Being third in your first season back in league 1 is some achievement. Just that nagging doubt in your head that it doesn't feel like a top 3 team, take the last two home atmospheres. Absolutely dead for the majority of the game despite being top2/3 and there being nearly 20,000 and well over 20,000 at the games.

 

Park behave. As much as i love the lad his time here is up. He's out of contract in the summer so we ain't getting a fee for him either, he'll be going on 36 come the start of the season.

 

It’s a million miles different to so many games in recent years being a “chore” but the last few home games have felt really different to most of the early season ones.
Personally I go with a very different expectation now than September or October.
I certainly don’t go thinking we are going to give any teams a right good hiding.
Wins are wins are wins but mildly entertaining every now and then wouldn’t hurt.

Can’t really remember being that gripped for lengthy periods at any home game for a while now.
Still really look forward to games but with a slightly muted expectation.

 

I thought he had another year

 

lets face it we will not get promotion this season if we finish in the top ten that to me is a great
result in div 1.

 

Upto the Cardiff game it felt like we'd gatecrashed a party, we didn't take ourselves too seriously and we were just along for the ride. After that its felt more a battle of attrition, doing enough to win but never feeling fully convinced. I write that with the caveat that its generally like that win or lose, i wasn't that disappointed as some yesterday as i expect it could happen to any team in the division on any given day, Port Vale putting 5 past Blackpool after a Blackpool sending off similar to us needing Wigan to lose men to beat them.

 

The worst centre backs at the club are the permanently injured ones, they’re no good at all.

 

Agree that. We would certainly have accepted top 10 pre season. Our good start raised expectations but we all know that too many of our squad are l2 players contracted to the end of the season, too many to ship out before then. We have made good progress and the signs are that this will continue. I still hope we can hang in the po's will have to see what happens this month.