The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Stockport County Saturday 8th October @ 3:00pm

This may sound odd Dave but I feel far more comfortable playing away at the moment. Playing at VP affects the team if we aren’t playing well ( vicious circle) and weirdly it affects officials.
Remember the days of old the VP faithful got behind the team , for good or bad? It was like a morgue today and has been for long spells for some weeks.

I’m not excusing a clearly abysmal performance, but I don’t think VP is helping and it won’t until we start to improve our “ dynamic”. Like the team ….it’s “flat”?

 

He’s had two poor games, notably both when “partnering” Dion imho.

I said Banks is/ was a big, big miss, perhaps today proved it.

 

I don’t think they were any worse than any other side we have played at VP.

 

Sensible and logical.
Not sure that's allowed on here.
CTID

 

Funny, I was watching in iFollow and immediately shouted ‘No’ in frustration that the ref got it wrong. Was surprised to then hear commentary say that they thought it was a pen also. Clumsy, yes. A pen, I wasn’t so sure.

Doesn’t change the nature or outcome of the game, we didn’t deserve anything. But need to watch again to be convinced it is was a stonewall pen.[/QUOTE]
It was soft and given the excuse to go down. The ref saw it from a different angle to the camera. I said it was soft straight away. We never get em!,,,,

 

we have got away with playing poor and still getting points lately, today was a wake up call.
hope it is just a blip, or we are in for another disappointing season

 

The reaction of players is normally a good indicator when a penalty is given.
Odusina,Platt and Foulds all just stood still when it was given.
Only Halliday reacted and even that looked half hearted.

 

Was cook even playing today ? Whenever cook comes up against a half decent defender.. be becomes the invisible man.

you can say no service blah blah blah… but hey the striker has to get himself into good positions and make an effort as well. Time to drop him give oliver a chance and use Cook as a late impact sub.

 

Not a doubtin my opinion

 

Recent performances suggest another mid table finish.

Quite a few need to up there game asap.

Worryingly midfield never takes control of a game.

 

Long way to go but today's defeat has certainly been coming.
I just hope now it's happened we can re group and perhaps start to dominate a games which is so far long overdue in my opinion

 

Looked a penalty to me in the kop. If it had been the other way round we'd have been screaming for one

 

People blaming the fans at Valley parde, there was nothing to cheer about today.

 

Or mine

 

Songo needs to be in centre mid desperately, then Smallwood can do his stuff.

 

I noticed the ref wasn't interested in a penalty when Oliver was grappled in the area, but quickly gave a free kick for exactly the same challenge near the centre circle.
Given the rest of the day we would have missed anyway.

 

Cook was utter shite today. Woeful!

 

We saw Banks today. He says he has a calf strain but should be back soon. He is missing playing.

 

In a weird way, I think today may be a good thing. We've been coasting now for several games, not playing particularly well or as a coherent side but still getting results. I think complacency may have set in but today should provide a rocket up the backside that is needed. Time will tell of course but sometimes teams need an absolute stinker of a performance in order to refocus.

 

Slightly harsh analysis as he was as good as most city players today, but I do agree with you he was woeful.

I generally find Cook a confusing and sometimes frustrating player. He can be very good, and I was first to admit I’d been wrong in some of my past opinion of him. But if he’s not good he’s generally pretty poor. Hughes has mentioned several times he’s a confidence player, driven by when he’s scoring. Trying to think of game when Cook has played well but not scored - cannot think of any?

Leads me to think if he’s not scoring, what else do we get from him (genuine question, not a bashing)?

Now let me also say some of his performances this season have been really good, and his goal return is fantastic. Nothing but credit to him for that, especially given his ending to last season. But I do think Hughes needs to work on our impact at the top end of the pitch and how he can use other assets better, other than just Cook and one way of playing over and over again.