The Voice - Match preview #37: Wigan Athletic vs Bradford City Saturday 14th March 2026 3:00pm

County played pretty well but take nothing away from Lincoln. I've watched quite a bit of them since they beat us convincingly, I wasn't much of a fan of theirs but I have to admit to being very impressed with the style they have developed, the front six are the best in the division and there championship standard players amongst them. Their problem will be keeping hold of their best players, some of them have the ability to push for a top half championship side whereas we only have one in Jenson Metcalfe. That's not to knock us in any way, this season has been a huge success, no one could have predicted we would be 4th, thats what riled me up yesterday. Yes we lost and didn't play well but I'd expect that sometimes of a team that's arguably overachieving with the squad it has got.

 

I honestly believe it was to try and pacify the fan base with regards Cook going, it would be interesting to find out what % of Mullins wage we're paying, it wasn't a great game but until the second goal went in (gifted by us) there was little between the two average League One sides on that showing, we've enough in the tank to get a play off place and if that had been on offer before a ball was kicked only an idiot wouldn't have taken it, we're massively over achieving and if fans can't see that and accept there will be games where we won't do a Peterborough or Port Vale they need to watch another sport.

 

Half a million Sparks said.

 

Agree very little changed with regards our second half performance when those 3 subs were made, just how much mental distractions Pointon and Sarcevic had only those who have had those kind of problems understand, and as you say hopefully all three will be starters on Tuesday night, unfortunatly it becomes a must win game or there will be a few fans calling the players bottlers.

 

In Mullin's 7 appearances so far, he's committed 9 fouls and had 2 shots on goal. I've not even bothered to count how many times he's been caught offside compared to how many shots he's had, but I imagine it'll be pretty similar. And people thought he'd be an upgrade on Humphreys

I know we are all negative after a defeat, but I'd love to hear Sharpe say our squad is stronger after January now. Where's Joe White disappeared to?!

Well done to Wigan though, nullified anything we had going forward in the wide areas, deserved the win.

 

You'd have hoped Alexander would have taken those two on one side and asked how they felt with regards their personal situation, and I believe both are the type of players who would have told Alexander they wanted to play and put their team mates first.
The whole team were below par yesterday certainly none of the three subbed IMO were taken off for lack of effort.

I certainly echo your comment about Tuesday nights game.

 

As @Rogered Tart said previously Alexander is on a hiding to nothing, he plays the same 11 and they dont perform, or he makes changes and again those brought in dont perform, there was very little in the two teams they took 2 of the few chances ( one a gift from us) and we didnt, get the job done against Mansfield who as you say wont be easy.

 

Agree . They didn’t pay daft money for some of their players but I don’t buy this “ We have the 12th largest budget in L1 “ nonsense . They have always paid very good wages . Remember they blew us out of the water with Vernham and Paudie . ? They should be fine in the CC as you say .

 

Lincoln have been a league club for 6 seasons after spending 6 seasons in the national league only a few years before that, probably as good an example of how to run a club succesfully now they are pretty much guaranteed a spot in the championship. Alexander has us way ahead of where we expected to be as club to his credit, i don't expect us to be going toe to toe with the likes of Lincoln or Cardiff just yet. One interesting stat from league one is that you'd have to go back to the shortened season of 2019/20 to see a team with such a low positive goal difference in the playoffs (Wycombe with +5), goal differences currently like ours and Stockport wouldn't get you a place in the playoffs, something we have to look at going forward if we want to improve.

 

This isn't a whitch hunt on my part but yesterday not for the first time this season Humphrys drifted through the second half, Mullins wasn't much better although he does what most expects him to do, unfortunatly without much threat infront of goals and Swam was ineffective as was Ashby who I thought could have done better defending Taylors goal.

 

Did he say how much we had saved with getting Cook,Halliday and Patto of the wage books ????
The Jake young money ???
The fee for Patto ????
The extra money for increased gates ???
The league cup money ?????

 

Not an unreasonable question to ask, I believe I read someone had posted last season we ran on a £3m deficit?.

 

Had he not started them he would still have got it in the neck for not doing so sometimes he cannot win
Did the 3 who came on at HT do really anything to effect the game anyhow ???
Just think that whatever he was gonna do would have still ended up in another piss poor performance.
All very poor in the end

 

I agree and interestingly we were better on most stats except the one that matters of course! On another day their well taken first goal ballon’s over the bar and we stick one in and win. So many games are fine margins in this league, it’s not to do with not resting players or whatever. We are in a bunch of teams that are pretty average in this league, everyone except the top 2 and bottom 3 belong in that group I’d say. We’ve shown enough throughout the season to deserve to be where we are but we certainly aren’t anything special. As Roger alludes to, our goal difference tells you all you need to know, thankfully we’ve won more fine margins games than we’ve lost.

 

Thought Humphrys was getting in the way of Touray and Wright more than anything, he looked like he couldn't be bothered.

Ashby should have took the 1 game ban bringing down Taylor for their goal, it's not as if he plays anyway.

 

The season has to be judged as a massive success so far, surely no-one can deny that. The away form has obviously been a massive issue. To me, it’s simply we don’t create enough true chances and score even fewer. We find teams who give us a lot of the ball harder to play against. So, once we go behind away it’s more or less game over.
I’m not throwing the toys out despite how disappointing yesterday was, made worse by getting out that bloody car park. GA would have criticised for making changes, most people thought that was best XI to start. We never looked at the races and we are still 4th but we definitely need a win on Tuesday. So much pressure on home games is becoming a bit of a worry and Stevenage, Plymouth & Bolton to come. Loads of teams around us play each other before end of season though. I’m still pretty hopeful we’ll make play-offs, but that game on Tuesday is so important now on that front.

 

You see the games differently from behind the goal and I won't question players until I have see a few videos replays of the goals/game as you say the first was a decent ball in from out wide, not delivered with any pace but enough for Vickers to control and get a very good strike on, the lad took it well, I never questioned Walker positioning he had to defend his near post but as you say 9/10 that shot flies over the bar and into us City fans, so for me Walker did what I'd expect from a goal keeper, don't get beat on your near post.
With regards the second with us being at the opposite end it was difficult to apportion blame, Metcalfe made the initial blunder (and acknowledged it) but looking at the replay I thought Ashby could have done more ? but credit to the way Taylor took his chance as Ashby came across he flicked it across him then at speed looked to control the ball with his knee Walker got is hand to it but not enough to turn it round the post, as you say very small margins.

 

I was going to comment yesterday on someone who said Humphrys had been brought on to play the 10 role yet he hugged the line making it difficult for Wright and Touray to get attacks going down the left.
I have questioned Ashbys involvement in the second goal and given him the benefit of only being on a couple of minutes but your correct their were 3 diffenders chasing Taylor down and he could have gone across him and taken out ( one for his team mates) and recieved a yellow.

 

I'm going to watch the Palace Leeds game and hope Palace can put a smile back on my face, I know I shouldn't be bitter but to hell with it Palace 2 Leeds 0 .

 

I said the same, Taylor should have been brought down and taken the consequences, one for the team as they say.