The Voice - Match preview #30: Bradford City vs Peterborough United Saturday 14th February 2026 3:00pm

GA's post match interview is interesting. He apparently asked the players on Tuesday whether they want to be a fast and ambitious team or a slow and safe one. He also asked Max to have a word with them all and come back to him and let him know if the players want to play slow and steady because if they do, he'll change the way he coaches them. Max didn't go back to him and when he asked him why on Friday he said there was no further discussion needed because they all want to be fast and ambitious. I guess we'll see over the next few weeks how true than turns out to be.

 

Yes I heard that, it made all the right noises but as they say actions speak louder than words. If we’d had lost yesterday would GA have mentioned that? Probably not.

 

Agreed. Challinor, won't be setting Stockport up like that!!

 

A good read https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/bradford-city-boss-graham-alexander-on-kayden-jackson-bobby-pointon-fast-and-ambitious-bantams-plus-update-on-defender-5598490

 

I don't get your point. GA bothers to give us some quite insightful information into his management style freely without prompting, because he was pleased that the team committed to a way of playing and we played well - note, he believes that commitment is nearly as important as the result. For instance I remember him been unimpressed with the Exeter performance.

So he could easily have mentioned it, if we'd lost but also played well.

For instance he praised the second half against Cardiff.

 

And Cardiff's manager was full of respect after that win, making sure they changed their tactics at our place.

One of my clients has two Cardiff fans, who said that we are still the best they've seen this season.

 

They started, first ten minutes OK and then came back into again 3-0 down, even missing a penalty.

Yes, it was great - but not 85 minutes plus utter dominance.

I actually thought the Colchester match was better and prior to yesterday, easily the best home performance since 16/17.

 

You need to have more faith in GA. As soon as I saw the team I had total confidence in our front line.

 

Power is a huge miss for that game, I'd argue far more than their player quoted by Williams yesterday. I'd be tempted to drop Sarce deep to cover Evans and the impressive Metcalfe

 

I'll be honest and admit that once the starting 11 had been announced fellow City fans at our table in the suite were saying it's a strong bench but I was more concerned about going a goal down and hoping the likes of Mullin, Wheatley, or Humphrys come on and rescue the game.
I Was worrying for now't, that was some game and credit to Alexander, as I posted earlier Alexander's post match interview reflected more or less how Mark Bower had seen it.
We all like to think we know the game but as Alexander has said many times it's what he sees during the week in training that can determine his starting 11, Jako could have had a couple, Sarcevic should have had a couple and once again Wheatley one on one should have done better, but I'd be very hard pressed to see anything negative in yesterday performance apart from it should have been a far bigger winning margine.
Although Bass make a hash of that punch that Bobby scored from he was a massive reason why the score wasn't even higher, if we can play anywhere like that against Stockport and win I would hope fans don't comment they were poor opposition, yesterday Posh looked poor because they had no answer to our game plan, and once you get that sort of momentum going it's difficulf to stop.

 

The voice also said we’d lose 4-1 at home to Doncaster so I wouldn’t be quoting that source as a great arbiter of how a football match will go.


For somebody who clearly knows facts and places a lot of emphasis on them to take the often inaccurate guesswork of a random poster to prove how good another team is going to be seems a bit odd.

 

You don't understand what actions speak louder than words means? That's the point, without the performance yesterday, the anecdote would never have been mentioned. Great, let's back it up with more than just a one-off. Those words will be meaningless if we revert to our recent performances.

 

I had to smile reading your Sarcevic comment as the guy sitting next to me said once the starting 11 was announced, he thought Sarcevic would have gone in January, I really shouldn't be suprised as another couple of his pearls of wisdom with regards players was "Cook offers nothing when not scoring" and when Bobby got into the team on a more regular basis I said the lad at times is too quick with regards seeing a pass and we'll get a decent fee when he goes, he said who was I commenting on, replying he's too light weight and easily put out of the game, at times you have to bite your tongue.

 

Stockport didn't have a game. Was Challinor at VP? After our game there, he described us as a big boot it anywhere team.

 

As did many Luton fans after last weeks game, also saying it was the best Luton have played for a while.

 

A shame they couldnt have this conversation 2-3 months ago. I mean, us mere mortals could see a massive drop off in tempo and press but the paid professionals couldnt....and then waited 2-3 months to address it.

 

I'll take the same result on Tuesday night, its his job to counter the oppositions formation, it was sour graps because Stockport didn't take their chances first half when we were under the tosh and we took ours in the second half, bring it on Challinor.
If I recall correctly during that game many on here (including myself) commented on the way Stockport took us apart, I didnt read many posts saying Stockport looked good because we were bad, they set the bench mark and City never got near it first half, but what a turn around when Stockport certainly looked second best once we started to take the game to them.

 

How do you think the stats would compare if they'd had our fixtures and we'd had theirs?

It's too simplistic to just compare a few results without looking at anything else.

 

Agree, we need three in there to prevent being overrun. That's been our downfall of late.

 

Although the pitch held up well yesterday, judging by the highlights there wasn’t much green there. I hope it doesn’t end up like the sandy beach we saw a few seasons ago.