The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Crawley Town Saturday 29th October @ 3:00pm

We are two players short in order to have a go at promotion. Walker - Who will probably be back after the world cup id imagine, and a box to box cm. Having one cm who passes backwards more times than forward is manageable, but when you’ve got 2 of them, your in for a long evening

 

Too many players off it today. Smallwood had a shocker although in fairness he never stopped wanting the ball. I dont have a massive problem with the playing out from the back, but we have to be much quicker than we were today. Far too easy to defend against! No point lumping it long whilst just having Cook up front.
On the plus side, Chapman was excellent throughout-just wish he could shoot! Much will depend on Walkers return I think

 

On paper probably the best squad we’ve had for years and possibly the best in this division, however in reality it’s really not good enough.
Can’t blame the German anymore this is all down to Welshman and his coach and the tactics employed, it’s a results business and results and performances haven’t been good enough

 

He was far from alone today @trevor our captain was equally as wasteful at times, we had no one in midfield who could take the game by the scruff of the neck and go at the opposition.

 

100% this.

And we’ll continue to struggle to put teams away if we don’t address this.

 

And Smallwood is living of his past reputation

 

Yup, for the first time he was just a little bit prickly in his interview - and not for turning

 

Behave did you miss where Oliver was put clean trough and he was looking for a team mate, like it or not same chance to Cook and there would have only been one outcome, but as sure as hell he wouldn't have been looking elsewhere apart from the goal.

 

If Sutton’s the answer then I don’t want to hear the question.

 

I too was disappointed to hear what he had to say. He seemed very casual about it all and thought we'd played well. He also said Gilliead made a mistake but then 'put it right'. 'Put it right' in the sense of fouling the bloke he'd given the ball to resulting in a free kick from which they scored. And playing it from the back is here to stay because it gives us the best chance of opening teams up. Apparently.
After a performance like today's you'd like to think there'd be some sort of acknowledgement from the manager but he sounded quite relaxed about it all. Starting to wonder if he really does know what he's doing. Gilliead and Smallwood were dreadful today and Cook spent most of the time he was on standing still waiting for something to come his way. Compared with the mobility of their front players we were embarrassingly slow and ponderous. And very boring to watch.

 

Ironic isn't it we draw again today (although it felt like a defeat again) and we go up a place in the table.

 

Only one outcome? Did you see him miss today and the several misses on Tues not to mention the misses at Grimsby last week.

 

Do we have a player that can do that though?

 

4th place is no better than 7th. It’s the top 3 we need.

 

There still that offer of a BBU bet if your so confident...................but your really not are you or you'd have backed your comments up with money

 

Top 3 would be great, I'm not writing us off yet, but we have no divine right to an auto place because were Bradford City, I don't want a play off spot but if we have to go to Wembley to get out of this league I'll take that.

 

Agreed, and we are still well in the mix for that! Yes we've had a dip and the goals have dried up. We have players coming back from injury and hopefully a couple of good additions to come in the January window. Currently the way we play is probably more suited to away games so not a bad thing that our next 2 games are away! We were too slow and easy to defend against today

 

Wembley might suit our style of possession football, might be able to tire the opponent’s and grab a late equaliser

 

Of course I’d take 7th place above 8th but we’ve only been promoted from the playoffs twice and in both occasions we did it the hard way from the final play off spot and overturning a home defeat in the first leg. My point is the playoffs are a lottery and with a 1 in 4 chance the odds are against us.
It’s imperative we finish 3rd or above or we prepare to be disappointed again.

 

Crawley were happy to have all 10 outfield players in our half, 6 in the box for the corner and the other four well into enemy territory two being a couple of yards from the edge of the penalty area.