The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Salford City Sunday January 1 2023 @ 3:00pm

Echo everything that has been said about it being a thoroughly enjoyable game. It’s been well over a season since I left the stadium feeling throughly entertained. One observation for me would be the need to add that midfielder who can get hold of the ball and dictate the game. Toward the end it just needed someone to put a foot on the ball and take the sting out of the Salford attacks. Maybe that level of player is beyond us but it’s certainly the type of player that would push this team on.

 

That's the only thing I think we need in Jan. A quality, ball playing Central midfielder. Ship a couple of fringe players out and send Perreira back, that's it.

 

The bit that bothered me is that they didn't have to try very hard or do anything brilliant to get their chances. Just fairly long diagonal balls or crosses into our box and that worried me.

After their first I think it jolted the team and we were very quick to push onto their full backs and deep midfielders to stop any crosses for the rest of the half but the second half we seemed to forget again and then the last 15 minutes were pretty dire, not even trying to stop crosses even though Eisa and Cook were fresh on.

Earlier in the season we did well in closing out a couple of games. We need to get that calmness back again. It's ridiculous when we have everyone in our half for a corner that a team can still get crosses in so easily. We need to be closer to them. The zonal marking doesn't really work with our players as they just drop deep and don't think about blocking crosses.

It's a minor moan but we put a lot of the pressure on ourselves is the essence. Earlier in the season teams were having to work hard to score.

 

Gilly gets some ridiculous abuse on all social media forums. I don't get what more people want. Of the players starting it was only him still with the energy left to close down after 95 minutes.

Adams always picked him. Hughes always picks him. Yet apparently, he's rubbish

 

I think you're exaggerating a little. No one was really closing down from about 75 minutes onwards and there was a lot of hoofing up the pitch. That's not me putting Gilliead down specifically, the whole team dropped too deep.

 

It's dismissive to belittle the skills Salford presented us. I thought they were the most skilful team we've seen here this season. Goodness knows what McAleny could have achieved if he'd mentally applied himself every time he went on the pitch. Has he ever played bad against us?

Watt, when not sulking, showed that he's the only player we should regret leaving last season.

Smith was a handful all match.

They had three of four other very 'nice looking on the eye' players.

Their problem is they are not a team - arguing amongst themselves late in the first half isn't getting you automatic promotion.

 

I wouldn’t take social media to serious, I just read on Twitter someone saying they’d take Threlkeld over Halliday or words to that effect. I need a lay down after that corker, has to read it twice to make sure it wasn’t a joke.

 

To be fair - up to & including the Carlisle game, Gilly has been nothing short of gash. 5 out of 10 most games. Therefore the criticism was warranted. Against Harrogate he was much better, today he was very good, like most of the team

I must say I was disappointed with Walker when he came on, he was very pedestrian. Although I have seen other comments from fans saying he was a class above, I guess we all see different perspectives

 

I'd say the best team we've seen at VP so far this season is Northampton. Salford played a good game, but we were the better team. We couldn't get near Northampton, possibly due to our formation at that time I admit, but as a cohesive unit they seemed better than Salford to me. Too much route one to Smith and a reliance on McAleny.

 

Stockport and Northampton for me.

 

LOL... What a first sentence...

I wasn't dismissing their general play. Indeed, had Watt or Galbraith passed the ball better in the final third then they would have created more and better chances. A few times we benefitted from a stray pass from them and Halliday or Foulds managed to scramble back.

What I was saying is their chances all came from pretty long balls that we could have done a better job of trying to prevent by closing down the crosser/passer.

 

Re Walker. Get to Specsavers.

 

Trust you!

HnY you miserable git

 

They played to their strengths, a big bustling giraffe up front who waved his arm in Lewis’s face and got away with it at crosses. That’s pretty much it really.

 

HNY to you mate.

Yes, I am still miserable.

 

He’s had about 60 odd minutes game time since the first game of the season. Can’t expect much else!

 

No, we didn't! We never changed the formation and if you think we did, football isn't the sport for you

 

Add to that he just spent 5/6 days in bed with illness and lost 4kg, I thought he did as well as expected and still managed to offer more than Chapman.