The Voice - Match preview Stevenage vs Bradford City Saturday 11th February @ 3:00pm

To be honest though when you have a limited budget it's far easier to compete playing this style. Creative players cost more. However as England showed, set pieces can be a blessing

 

That is spot on Dave. Their back post header examples that to a T yesterday. We static jump, they running jump. In the old days our Tony Leighton was an absolute master at it. Smaller bloke but his running leap made him appear 6ft 6”.
Best example of a top class exponents..perhaps Kane and Ronaldo.
Liverpool who are exponents of the “zonal” marking have been sussed now. I agree time for change.

 

Beginning of the season he said Mansfield, Swindon, Walsall and Salford were the usual suspects who would be challenging. Their transfer business got his seal of approval and the benchmark for this league.

On that account id say we are doing ok...

 

No, I didn’t I said we would finish outside the play offs and currently we are.

However, I said this because we are not a well run club and others in this this division are better than us.

I also said it because I believe this season is a free hit.

Saying all this though some of you thought we would be walking the league but we are far from doing that because in truth we are not good enough as yet!

 

I think the problem with "whinging" and this forum, is that it doesn't take long before the knives are out. Be that any particular player, the manager, the CEO, the owner or fellow fans. Equally a result like today shouldn't gloss over a poor first half. A portion of fans have lost patience (understandably) and can't wait to post when things are going wrong. I'll admit to being one of the fans crying out for a creative midfielder, and also agreed with the dropping of Cook, but in the cold light of day, what Hughes has done and what we lacked was experience. Hats off to him for bringing in youngsters in the summer, but it wasn't working. He recognised that and provided the ones he brought in, stay fit, then I'm quietly confident we should be there or thereabouts. I'm sure if we can get the 3 points on Tuesday, the hope will continue to build.

 

Romain Vincelot was a more recent example of showing how timing a jump can consistently overcome the height deficit too Kev.

 

Yes good shout , that’s a major reason why he transitioned to an emergency centre back so easily. I did like Vince…good honest footballer.

 

Read MH in the T&A

Totally agree. Whether you think L2 is poor or not (Fordy), the fact of the matter is yesterday we played a team in 2nd place. They have now lost only 4 games, 2 to us. They are the 5th highest scorers but we have restricted them to 2 goals in 2 games, they have the second best defence but just short of 30% of their concessions have been against us.
Yes, we were a bit average in the first half but it's a long time since a City team have fought to the end for a winner with some great performances, Lewis, Stubbs being stand out for me backed by Ridehalgh, Kelly and some quiet prompting from all the midfield.
Stevenage fans in front of me were pre match "don't care where you are in the League, we're too good". They weren't saying that at the end and the pre match antics of Evans and in game antics of the odious Raynor with Evans tearing up and down with the officials (not seen that from him much this season) tells you they were on the back front from the off.
Back it up this week now lads.

 

Off topic but whoever updates the league table on here has Carlisle P31..W14...D10...L6 (30) ...

 

Absolutely fantastic day out yesterday, totally upset the form book and showed what we’re capable of. Despite a very poor first half showing, I really believe Hughes is finally getting to grips with what it takes to outthink his opposite number. Soon as we were awarded the equaliser, you could see the belief flood into the players. Yes we are piss poor on set pieces, but what an end result

I was getting extremely pissed off with their groundsmen during the warmup, as were many of our fans, not to mention the 3 goalies. At one point there were 5 of the twots just stood there with their forks, clear shithouse tactics from the fat controller to disrupt our warm up. They were even goading our crowd just before KO. Absolutely disgusting individuals

Also the pitch invader - what the hell?? The lack of a reaction from the stewards was appalling. Shame the guy didn’t trip over and break his leg

The 3 hour drive back up the A1 was especially sweet given what we had just achieved, despite the stretches of 40mph!

Hopefully Donny will now be a sellout…

 

There were very few posts I read during the game that weren't fair comment with regards our first half performance, yes I was as critical as most and I class myself as a very moderate Bradford City fan, I think its more frustration as Hughes has been given the tools to build a very good squad and IMO with the players he has we should be right up there fighting for an auto place and yesterdays first half performance was miles off what is required.
Once again we have a massive chance to put our mark on proceedings with our next two home games win them were right in the mix, I can't bear to think of a no show Bradford City.

 

Have noticed since Andy Cook has been back in and scoring there's no question of his apparent lack of workrate or the lazy stereotype of him being overweight. I guess the same tired old cliches will be back if he doesn't score in the next two games. Even the rubbish about him being 'rested' to come back later, all absolute garbage.

 

Comment from a Stevenage fan on BBC website. Not bad for only 700 of us!

 

Even those quoting the old "he contributes nothing to the team" seems to have gone quite, long may that continue.

 

Goals make atmosphere.

 

In fairness, if he doesn’t get the service, same with Oliver….the comment, ie his lack of contribution, is perfectly valid. Better service , Smallwoods long range free kick to him for his header down to Derbyshire, who finished superbly, a case in point.

All forwards thrive on service if we are honest.

 

This league is all about consistency as no team is really any better than anyone else. We took 6 off Stevenage, yet we drop 3 to the worst team in the division. I'm hoping Hughes has learnt that his tactics from earlier in the season need a certain quality of player and that by going more direct in league 2 will pay more dividends.

 

Strange isn’t it RT. I said our front 5 were dire in the first half yesterday, but the quality of the knockdown and Derbyshires finish transformed the game. The shimmy for him to take the ball past the defender and finish as well as that……we haven’t seen for a long long time. Shows his pedigree for sure. He will probably be a starter instead of Costello going forward?
Walker getting back to his best second half, the game seemed to pass him by in the first. Mind you it was mostly aeriel stuff over our middle trio’s heads?

 

Anyone seen a different angle on the first goal? just wondering how far over line it was

 

But he does contribute with regards his over all game, corners, set pieces, on occasions dropping off to take a pass in midfield etc, yes without good service it looks like he's doing little with regards his all round game, the poor service both he and Oliver have recieved it makes Cooks goal ratio an even more fantastic achievement.