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

The Play-Off's are great - unless your team is in them, then it's a balls ache - too much stress!
It's the auto's for me mate.

 

So what's the answer drop our leading goal scorer and play Oliver do me a favour, I've seen all Oliver's game time an there is nothing in his game that even suggests he will score, once again today with 15 or so minutes left Sparkie goes like for like, were at home be a little adventurous for a change.

 

Nor unless we strengthen. Cant see us in the top seven come may

 

I'd be delighted with an auto place mate, my reply was to @Loyalbantam post with regards 4th is no better than 7th, stress you should be used to that now around after 70 years of watching Bradford City .

 

No the answer is most definitely not to swap Cook for Oliver but we need 2 up top for sure so when Cook is misfiring there’s someone else to chip in.
I’d play Cook and Angol/Harratt upfront
Wright and Banks out wide
Smallwood and Sutton CM
Unchanged back 4
Yep you’ve sussed it! 4-4-2!!

 

Fair play to Crawley -coming and having a go-no time wasting etc. Good to see.

Gillead and Smallwood had mares today-nearly all of Crawleys chances came from at least one of those two making a mistake.

Getting a bit sick of the same subs. We should have gone 442 for the last 15 minutes and battered their defence-have a go!

No we take Cook off and bring on Oliver.

Banks did OK when he came on.

And what is with Periera love in today? He scores a goal-granted but was absent again for large swathes of the game.

Chapman is now playing well-just needs his shooting boots on.

 

Should that have been " no one who CAN ".

 

You'd think I'd be used to it wouldn't you, but no, still feel totally p****d off walking back down Manningham Lane!!!

 

With both Pierera and Cook it’s like playing with 9 men. Add the poor performance from Smallwood and Gilliead and you can see why we struggled today. Platt needs about 10 minutes to decide he’s going to pass it square or back to the keeper. If we carry on like this attendances will soon start to fall off. When at home it’s on us to attack and get the fans going. We don’t seem to have a purpose to any of our play. We neither attack down the flanks or play through the thirds, with the exception of Chapman nobody drove at the opposition. It’s not taking long for the frustration to rise amongst the fans with the slow purposeless passing.

We ain’t Barcelona we’re Bradford City. Get at the opposition and the crowd will back you. Tippy tap at your peril Mr Hughes.

 

I have to say that I have been quite critical of Harry Chapman's performances so far, but recently he has improved a lot.
Today's performance, for me, was the best that I've seen him play, he was superb today and fully deserved the Man of the Match award.
Long may it continue, well done Harry.

 

Superb comments, Inspector.
Hit the nail right on the head.

 

On todays performance no, which is a little worrying as most would agree this squad is probably the strongest squad we've had for a while.
Gary Jones was saying we don't seem to have that mentality to start the game and put the opposition under pressure from the start, if Sparkie believes we look comfortable playing it out from the back he's watching a different game to me, O/K we kept the ball but not in our own final third.

 

It's a bad habit I've gotten into not reading the replies to my comments. I'm easily distracted these days.

So.. what we're betting... I'll have £20 on city not winning promotion this season. ( I'll pay that regardless)

 

Disappointed again!!...Call me fickle or whatever you want but after a long long absence and this season finally returning I'm remembering again why I fkd it off, we're only 16 games in and I already can't be arsed, Mansfield tickets cancelled, please City give me something to prove me wrong.....

 

What's worrying is that Hughes either cannot see when players are struggling with the game or is happy for them to do so. He says he will stick to his tactics even though team after team will put pressure on us knowing how we play. Not sure he is a bit of a dinasour football wise not realising that football at this level is about pace and effort closing teams down. Not countless passing around the back letting teams have the advantage

 

The points were dropped in midfield today. No idea what was wrong with Richie and Gilly, they were shocking.

Thought Foulds also had a very poor game, never seemed to get to grips with the pace of the game or the speed we needed going forward.

Ironic that our goal came after tippy tappy at the back, followed by almost giving the ball away... crikey.

Chapman plays well but boy howdie, he is awful at finishing. Not Wright's best game, but still better than Pereira (who scored) - would like to see Wright and Banks either side of Oliver, since Cook has gone off the boil a little. A few weeks ago he'd have buried that opportunity in the opening moments.

 

As long as Cook plays as the lone striker we’ll never keep the ball in the final 3rd. What is the plan of attack because the defence seem to have a different script to midfielders who have a different script to the front 3 or 4. We’re limping at the moment and need a spark to get this team going…

 

The worrying thing is we're so predictable it's ridiculous, Tuesday we always looked like conceding near the end no doubt, and today we never looked liked scoring a first never mind a second to seal it, so when we inevitably did concede we were screwed.

 

Harratt couldn't make the bench so I think we can rule him out, I'll be surprised if he's not back at Town in January, Sparkie made that comment about playing 4-4-2 unfortunately it was with regards Crawley's formation on the day.
Saturday against Harrogate is the ideal game to try 4-4-2 if Sparkie thinks that could change things, which after listening to his post match interview I don't think it's in his thoughts going forward.

 

My reply was with regards this comment from yourself "Mark Hughes is on thin ice.. trust me" I assumed you're in the know to come out with that, but I'll take that bet that OUR team get promoted .
I'll post it in the "Grudge Match" thread so we can revert back to it nearer the end of the season.