The Voice - Match preview Mansfield Town vs Bradford City Saturday 2nd September 2023 3:00pm

I think the main problem from an attacking sense (with and without Cook) is that the front 3 are too wide apart to link up. There’s never any chance of getting one, two’s around the box so every attack just fizzles out. Add to that, the defence are rarely 15 yards or more from our own box and you can see why we never seem able to play through the thirds. It’s just too stretched to be effective.

 

Very true but I believe over the year teams that win trophy's are teams that have a very good defence, a perfect example of scoring but not winning anything was that great attacking side Kevin Keegan put together at Newcastle, when asked about his style he quoted our intention is to score more than the opposition, they were great to watch but at the end of that season it didn't bring any hardware back to St james Park, although as a neutral it was great to watch.

 

The whole point of wingbacks are to provide width. The front three should be inverted/narrow and link together but as you said, they don’t do that. Don’t even get me started in the link between midfield and attack because it’s just none existent. Pattison and Osadebe are probably the two I’d play with all fit but that’s based more on the other options being too old or simply rubbish

 

He was holding his right side for the last 15 mins of last home game. Could hardly run. Probably a muscle injury or hip injury?

Not our strongest 11 today and a creditable away point. Looking at todays results this league is looking wide open.

 

Funny you say that because in commentary Raynor said Mansfield were pressing us high up the pitch looking to feed off bad passes or hesitancy, which did happen a few times.

 

The whole reason we hit the playoffs last season was Andy Cook having the season of his life. It wasn't even like we created a lot for him, his goal to chances record was ridiculously high and half a dozen quality individual goals. There was no way he would hit those heights again and without his goals we again look toothless. His safety first approach ultimately failed us last season, we can't let it happen again.

 

The post match interview is now up. Andy Cook is still injured. Pattison will be out for a couple of weeks with his thigh strain. McDonald now on a different course of antibiotics.

 

I'm can't disagree mate, take the Morecambe debacle out and most games have been pretty tight even the Crawley game we gifted them the goal with possibly a little help from the referee giving Crawley a free kick but we defended it poorly, did we deserve a point I'd say yes on the overall game having more chances on goal than Crawley playing for 50 minutes or so with 10 men, as they say it's a funny old game.

 

They have very little pace to press with. Akins is on his last legs and the other forwards are slow. No coincidence we looked better at the back playing a team with no pace.

 

Hughes said "If it had been on MOTD it would have been the last game", obviously still has a sense of humour

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gbbbct

Andy Cook hope to get him back sooner than later but believe it will be a couple of weeks.

 

He must have had a sense of humour at one time after a life time of watching Bradford City

 

He makes some fair points however the "they beat Stockport" point is no longer as strong as it was on the first day of the season. It looks likely they are going to struggle this season and even more so when Challinor goes to Charlton.

 

I was just about to post something similar. Can't really blame him because he probably just doesn't have it in his locker. Our most promising attacks petered away to nothing with Halliday finding himself in great positions, but then turning and passing back, even when one of the forwards had made the right run wide.

 

I thought Halliday was arguably our best player today.

 

I just think Hughes would never publicly say Cook is unfit in general and we have taken him out to work on getting him to a level we feel he should be at.

 

Meh.

 

But why should we be chasing, why can't we be leading??

 

Right then Doc

You know the 11 and subs we had available

What starting 11 would YOU have played
What formation
What tactics
Who would you have subbed and when

What would the result have been if you would have been the gaffer today.

I can’t wait for this

 

Last season we had 20 points from 10 matches.
That is not going to happen this season so are we worse now than then?
Or can we trust Hughes to have us rolling like a train and go on runs of 6 wins in a row etc from October onwards.
I just can't see it.

 

All the attacking signing and we still look like something is missing.

We don’t currently look good enough at all.