The Voice - Match preview #32: AFC Wimbledon vs Bradford City Saturday 21st February 2026 3:00pm

Absolutely not. It is madness!!

 

I think you might have added that second paragraph after I replied. Seriously you would take 8 more away performances like that...Wow

 

If it guarantees 7 home wins and a play off place then yes I would. In a heartbeat.

 

I suppose it's actually an interesting question. Firstly it doesn't guarantee 7 home wins. Secondly I thinking actually I want to have a bit more pride in my team. So no I wouldn't take another 8 performances like Wimbledon. Let's say we sneak up via the play offs. Would you then be proposing another 23 away performances like that to give us a better chance of staying up by winning more at home? I would however grudgingly take us grinding out ugly draws, or having a right go and losing.

 

I agree it's a weird one but a few threads are starting to emerge in my opinion. I might be wrong but I suspect GA and his staff have looked at the games we have left and made informed decisions on the likes of Pointon, Wright, Sarcevic, Baldwin etc and have measured their 'capacity' and decided how much game time they can absorb in order to keep winning games at home. Importantly, not just to keep fit but to be at their optimum. Not 80% but 100%. If those levels are maintained we win our home games.

The only reason I'd challenge that philosophy is that he's under estimating how much gametime they can absorb to maintain those levels. Nobody can claim to have a better opportunity to judge the above than GA. Would playing them away from home jeopardise their home performance? Of course it would.

Let's also look at the quality of our squad. Again I'm happy to be challenged on this but apart from Metcalfe, I don't consider our squad based on value and experience to be on par with the other top sides in the league. We are maximising our potential. Scratch the surface and we've got a clutch of league 2 players. Inevitably, by resting our key players for away games we're going to have dome very weak performances without our top players.

So, why are we prioritising key players for home games? Punters are turning up like other posters have mentioned and paying good money to follow their side. Don't they deserve better? Well, that would mean resting key players for home games. We've established ourselves at home as a phenomenon. Sides come to VP filled with doubt. We are in control of pre match routines, we have familiarity on our side and of course the home fans. Why wouldn't we capitalise on the home fixtures for our points? We can't guarantee collecting points on the road with the same certainty we can at home.

Would I like to see better away performances? Obviously. Realistically we can't get better away from home without taking the edge off our home form. It's really that simple. The squad are performing at complete capacity and that's down to GA.

 

For what it's worth I dont for a second believe that in his head, he is conceding these away games. He regularly places great emphasis on the fact that he trusts the whole squad. I think that whilst he is resting what he considers to be his first choice, he believes the replacements are fully capable of getting a positive result. Unfortunately I think his trust in some instances is badly misguided, and as has been said changing half the team is a recipe for disaster.
As for whether the strategy is working, we'll only be able to judge that come the seasons end. Its a dangerous strategy and we will absolutely not win all our remaining home games, so we'll need to get something away from VP.

 

Agree tbh. I dont think he's deliberately throwing games away. Of course he isn't but the personnel just isn't there. I actually think Swan returning could be a huge factor. If he's anything like at his best he might be able to drag a handful of away points in our favour.

 

The trouble is you can’t switch form on and off. Let’s say we get a playoff place by getting 7 wins at home. What kind of performance are you expecting to see in the away leg? We don’t know how to shut up shop, we create very little away from home and often concede 2 or more goals. If from now to the end of season we change tactic to defend and try to nick a goal, we’ll at least have practiced how we might play should we make the playoffs.

 

I honestly believe our away form and constant tinkering with it will crash our playoffs (If we achieve them)
Can’t see us getting a sniff at any team in away leg

 

I take it you don’t travel to away games, spending hundreds of pounds plus sacrificing often the entire day?
If you can guarantee 21 points from 7 home games I’ll gladly return all my away tickets for a refund and do something else on those days.

 

If I had the time and the money and the freedom from responsibility then yes I'd travel every week. It'd be infinitely more interesting than my current Saturday afternoon routine. As you know, we've won all big 4 of our home games this season. I font think it's a stretch to suggest we may well go on and win the remaining 7, although granted we will probably drop a couple of points. It's equally likely that we'll scrape a few away points. Either way, we only need 7 more wins, hopefully 6 by this time tomorrow.

 

'I started my post with 'if'. That's my disclaimer. As for what happens in the play offs you might have a point but let's be honest, with this squad getting into the play offs would be a phenomenal achievement. Realistically, it was never going to be better than that.

 

Ha ha. We can pray.

 

I also don't think that we're chucking the away matches, but selecting Tilt, Pennington and Kelly as your back three offers no hope of decent distribution from the back. Whatever one may make of Baldwin, he can turn defence into attack like no other centre back that we have, so it was baffling to leave him out.

The team selection was reminiscent of Mansfield on NYD - with a similar outcome.

I wonder if he'll give three in the middle away from home a crack at some point. We can't be much worse.

 

To be fair that's a much more reasoned post mate. However I still can't agree with your premise that we can't get more from our away games without jeopardising home results.

 

Yeah then get battered in the away leg of the playoffs.

 

I'm not sure where this win our home games and happily throw away our away games logic is even coming from. Look at our result list from last season, most of our wins came between 26 December and 04 March. We only lost one game in this time, it included remaining unbeaten but for one game away from home. We lost 2 home games last season, both came after poor away performances. So just chucking away away games isn't some sort of winning formula as our best form under GA included only losing 1 away game in nearly 3 months. Away form is important, even if you just draw. Losing creates negativity and poor morale, no way we just throw games away. GA got the team selection massively wrong, just accept it and hope he learns from it.

 

We dont know do we until he does it ?????

 

I mean should we get there i would seriously want us at home first to take at least some advantage into the away leg