The Voice - Match preview #43: Barnsley vs Bradford City Saturday 18th April 2026 12:30pm

Every single one of our forwards would fail the trade description mate
Regular goalscorers like Cook Campbell etc are as rare as hens teeth as far as Bradford City are concerned

 

Correct Park. It's also about the quality of the striker. I'm afraid that Swan just hasn't looked great since that very good performance at Blackpool. Powell, with his ability to do everything a front man should (even though that's not his best position) showed what a difference a good front man can make

 

The role of the forward has changed. 4/42 and certainly 4/2/4 no long exists - virtually no-one plays it and so even Cooke who was getting criticised by the Grimsby fans a couple of weeks back, now plays as a lone striker - creating chances for others as well as scoring himself.

 

A forwards main job is to score goals
Ours don’t, we don’t create lots of chances, but even the easy ones our guys miss
Sarce and pointon leading scorers, tells you all you need to know
Our shooting right across the team is pretty feeble to be honest though

 

So you give GA no credit with the improved creativity of Pointon and Wright or the way he's developed Metcalfe?

I seriously find it amazing that some are writing GA's death warrant. Fans of other clubs would be laughing if they read such comments.

Mind you we heard the same comments about Parky after the 2016 play-off SF loss. Those comments have aged really well.

 

Do the job at home Tuesday night

I get it he may have still been suffering from a knock but there are times that IMO the manager has got to bite the bullet, knowing what an influence certain players have on games and team mates.
He picks a front 3 who have pace and how many channel balls did we played to the feet of Jacko or Swan, great getting down the line and crossing thd ball when we had no one who looked brave enough to mix it with the Barnsley defenders, you bring an old head on he reads where the cross may land and its 1 - 1, having said that Humphrys did well with a decent ball in, we get lucky with the own goal 2 - 1 it should have been game over.
Credit to Barnsley when their man got a red Hourihane didn't go defensive and although we had plenty of possession we did little with the ball, as we know at 2 - 1 the games not won and once again we paid dearly for that late lapse.
Whats worse is all but Luton in the chasing pack are winning, we don't make it easy for ourselves .

 

Not in a 3-4-3 and not in that spanish team which dominated from 2008 to 2012, when the term 'false No.9' was invented.

The fact is that we've taken an average of 79 points per season, since Cooke got injured. What we need is a good goalscorer to take us to 2 points a game - not a good forward, as our forwards must be able to create, assist etc.

 

I think he's right to nurse Sarc. So what if it costs us 3rd or 4th - him, Pointon, Jackson (who is clearly rusty) and Wright been fully fit for the play-offs would be a big big bonus.

Always thought the Barnsley manager announcement would galvanise the team and fans, as he's popular with them like McCall is with us - but both are too idealistic as managers.

 

We scraped home last year and almost threw it away, if we had ended up in the playoffs last season, do you think we would have prevailed
Twelve months on and we are in a similar position a league higher and again are struggling to perform at the business end of the season
Different squad, same manager
As I said in my post, I have never been overly keen on his management and playing style
It has brought some success, but it’s a very hard watch.Today ,Stevenage,Northampton and Wycombe where all hard games to watch like many since Christmas, especially on the road

 

Grimsby have got a lad who knows where the back of the net is.

 

For me andy, it's the total lack of desire and commitment to throw your body - anything - at a cross into the penalty area which I find disgusting. Too many players simply stand and watch the ball whizz across the goalmouth.
Hell, even us ex-Sunday League lads would be bustin' a gut to get on the end of those.

 

So we're now 'if / butting' history. So I assume you'll agree that if Smallwood didn't get himself sent off at Swindon or if we didn't have a sickness bug around the Chesterfield match we'd have made winning promotion easier?

How can we have taken so many points in the last two years and yet you still moan about the footie quality. Look around, wonderful flowing footie rarely wins anything these days at L1/L2. We're just about to receive three clubs from L2, who make us look like the most flowing footy team ever!!

 

And saved us a bundle as well. I see you've forgotten one of those - that deflected save he made today.

Our defender should have got to the ball for the second goal - a keeper can't be everywhere. As for the first one, if we defend appalling like we did - don't be surprised if the keeper gets beaten.

So many fans are very harsh about their keepers. Love to know who you think we could have got who was better, that manages the defence and remains ranked as one of the better L1 ones.

I remember some been delighted when Doyle left the first time, as it seems the world is full of classy keepers who can play at L1 level. We soon found out, that wasn't the case.

 

At times we're our own worst enemies, once again the game was won, keep hold of the ball (preferably in their half) no gu ho football it wasn't required, once again Tuesday night becomes a big game, 3 points today and anything but a defeat on Tuesday night would have been acceptable.

 

thought you'd spring up to comment you must be on the clubs payroll. What has Parky got to do with this? You think GA is a championship standard Manager?

Has he developed Ethan Wheatley or Tommy Leigh? Pointon is a talent in his own right. You're just plucking things out of thin air.

 

Fully agree. And by the way, Gary Jones criticism may not have been wrong about his poor kick prior to their equalizer, however Barnsley still had to go from keeper to goal and through a lot of our outfield 10 players before scoring. It wasn’t great from Walker, but hardly down to him only.

 

He's right we had enough old heads to see the game out and once again we didn't.

 

He should be having nightmares about his whole game. Sitter was the worse moment, but his anticipation in the box on the 2-3 occasions we put a good ball in (I remember 2x from Jackson in the second half) and he was 5 yards behind. I’m singling him out today but think it’s justified - he really made us weaker today.

 

Two words sum up our inability to bring home 3 points today
The second one is Cook