The Voice - Match preview #26: Bradford City vs Walsall Saturday 25th January 12:30pm

And now we are scoring more goals without him. Take him and his goals away does not mean that those goals wouldn't have been matched in a side that didn't include him. It's like saying that removing Walker means we'd have conceded 100 odd goals more without him in the side.

We weren't out of the race you're right but our form would have kept us in 9th place. We've bounced around between the edge of the play offs and mid table for most of the last few seasons.

 

100 % this, we have seen a massive difference now the likes of Pattison, Halliday, Richards Sarcevic and young Pointon have found their form, we saw glimpses from Pointon playing along side Walker and Odour but he's certainly far more confident in what he does/tries with the likes of the aforementioned in the side.

 

I don't get how preference for the current set up automatically means your anti Cook. I think it's pretty obvious that we look a completely different side at the moment, be that the inclusion of Sarcevic and Pattison or the absence of Cook as a target man. With Cook we won games by the odd goal often made by himself. Opposition teams now have multiple danger men to nullify. In my opinion we'd still look to find Cook in this set up, to the detriment of the multiple attacking fronts we see now. After all why wouldn't you try and get the ball to the most clinical striker in the league. I suppose we won't know how it would've panned out, but in my opinion the football is more pleasing on the eye than the games before the injury, and we're scoring more goals to boot.

 

Yep, that was me. 1st game back at VP this season

 

If Alexander not going to give him game time to get his fitness why have the kid on the bench, I fully expected him rather than Leigh to come on for Kavanagh, I get he's been injured a while and is building up his fitness in training but Alexander has said many times there's a huge difference between training fitness and match fitness 20 minutes would have been a great run out for the kid IMO.

 

Don't you think that Pointon and Kav have improved because they're not chasing flick ons from Cook? We're keeping possession a lot more at the moment and playing through the thirds which is a joy.

 

Hypothetical as you know, fact is the goals scored mainly by Andy Cook got us into the position we were before his ACL injury, as a City fan I'm delighted others have started to score goals something most on here have been very critical of Cook carrying the side, that's fact my friend.

 

What if Kav gets injured early and then Leigh also picked up a knock?

He's on the bench because GA feels he can contribute if needed. Turns out he wasn't needed so he wasn't used, I don't really see any downside to that.

He'll get game time this season, he's just probably behind the squad due to not playing much recently so he'll have to be patient, especially with the team on a good run of results.

 

It certainly is a more pleasurable watch. The pace, movement and mobility we've seen in the last 2 home games is something we haven't seen for years.
Sadly we'll never know whether we would have seen the same level of performance with Cook in the team. All I will say is that our painfully one dimensional style for the first half of the season imo was more down to a constantly changing midfield as GA shuffled his options to contend with the absence of Pattison and Sarcevic. Those 2 returning, along with the emerging Richards who seems to be getting better each game is the real reason why we now look contenders.
Not getting carried away though. Tuesdays game worries me. Midweek game, lower crowd, the Derek Adams factor, parking the bus and loads of dark arts. It's the sort of combination that would typically see us come unstuck in the past. Win that though, and improve our away form and yes this could turn out to be the season we do finally get out of this league, which would have been unthinkable after Notts County.

 

So you've decided that after one great performance that Andy Cook was actually our problem all along? Because thats exactly what you're alluding to, that a guy who has pulled us out of the shit week after week and is now our fifth top scorer of all time should really have been replaced years ago. Because those goals, and theres no way of proving this, could have been scored by someone else?

 

One of the most pleasing things about yesterday was after about 10 minutes in we started to play keep ball from our back 3 and running the two Walsall front men ragged from side to side. Chasing a lost course is so demoralising.
A fantastic three goals from a great team performance and to cap it all off Danny Barbers help in saving the penalty. RIP Danny and I hope you will be at every game from now on.

 

We look better now because the first time in ages we have two attacking midfielders who will score goals something that was not there for a long time .............take Cook out of that side over the last few sasons and we would be truly fooked or let me guess one of the non firing forwards would have magically started scoring .............do folk believe that Hughes and GA knew that this system was better and reaped more goals yet they still went with Cook ???,
They stuck with gim because he was are only goal threat folk go on about Walker but how often was he fit and lets be right when he has been bang on formits normally in a team that had Cook in it.
I hope this system this set up sees us through but to think that Cook was holding us back was mental

 

The alternative to him being on the bench would have been to leave him out altogether and stick Oliver on there instead. I know which I'd rather have as an option, even if he isn't fully match fit.

 

Take him out of that side over the last 3 seasons and who would have magically stepped up ?????
He played and kept on playing because there was nobody there and Hughes and GA knew it.
Hindsight is an amazing thing but how many on here suddenly thought him coming off at Barrow would be a good thing for us ??????

 

I wanna know who would have stepped up to fill his boots over the last few seasons ???
Honestly all these years of scoring goals and all aling he was the problem because he was keeping non scoring midfield/strikers out of the side.
We look a better side now because for the first time in years we have a midfield who contribute unlike the midfield that was behind Cook for years.

 

Spot on in my opinion, apart from the last bit, I can only see a City win with that starting lineup even though these have been banana skins in the past.

The team have got the bit between their teeth and the belief.

Sarc also seems a very influential never say die player, we know what happens when you get an influential player a Gary Jones type as an example.

 

Of course I’ve seen an improvement, im not sure what the argument is here. All I’m saying is we’ve beaten Walsall in league 2 and I’m not gonna cream myself over it. They might be 15 points clear but this league is the poorest I’ve ever seen and Walsall are very poor

 

Spot on, it’s the other 10 making the difference as a unit as opposed to who is “9” as I alluded to earlier. There are pros and cons for whoever sits in that role…. Leigh might be just that surprise package , for all we know? We need to see more than 5 min cameos but there were brief glimpses yesterday ?

 

I haven’t been since October. absences not all football related though. However, I am really happy and enjoying watching City again. Hopefully the weather will improve as well, and I will take my plastic body down there again.

 

A team taking 40 points from a possible 48 is poor? Based on what exactly?