The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Accrington Stanley Tuesday 11th February 2025 7:45pm

After reading Richard's is going to play on rather than have an operation I'd hope Richards is one of the first names Alexander pencils in for his starting 11, IMO we are a far more balance side with Richards in.

 

Funny how we all see it differently .

 

I'd say having the likes of Pattison and Sarcevic playing along side Smallwood are a bigger reason were picking up results and believe with a natural goal scorer in our side we could have picked up a similar amount of points, all hypothetical of course we'll never know.
I echo your above, all about results.

 

What made it worse, if anyone hasn’t picked up on it, Oliver took whilst the very last minute to decide upon his move, which as GA said left us working on striker options on the last 12 hours of the window? Foresight should have come into play much much sooner. ( Unless we were working on it much longer? )

 

Yes Broncs I do understand but it is becoming glaringly obvious we can't make the ball stick up front. @Faithful Bantam has a large part of a thread on the subject so I'll leave it there

 

I did have a little chuckle to myself at one point during the first half. Whenever Baldwin tries to play a long ball to feet and it gets cut out he gets routinely slated for it. When Pointon tried the same last night and it got cut out he got a ripple of applause

 

Dead balls aside, Smallwood has been a revelation the last few months

 

Confirmation Romy rested

 

All to shoehorn a right back into a central defensive role. Absolutely made no sense.

 

And most realise why, having Sarcevic and Pattison along side him allows him to play his natural game, I accept football is a very passionate game even for fans sat watching and at times on here but Richie really does need to stop ranting as he does with regards refereeing decisions it won't change his decision and may as last night result in a yellow, as you say in this sort of form he's a very important part of our side.

 

That one last night was embarrassing the way he kept on and on in the refs face, following him across the pitch. . He gave him no choice....it was almost as though he wanted to get booked

 

I read their assistant manager said they should have had a stonewall pen……What’s he referring to, I don’t remember one incident other than their c/ b climbing all over someone and getting injured?

 

Yes I agree. The most important part of last night was the 3 points, however we need to pick up our game and push hard back at teams who want to disrupt. I thought they changed after half time passing the ball around and quickly but lacked quality up front. We can’t keep relying on wonder goals from Patto as much as it is brilliant to watch. Plus a great save from Walker.

 

It's because Pointon is usually in good (and safe) areas to try the passes. You can't seriously suggest that we should be trying little threaded passes through 30 yards from our own goal in the same way you would if you were 30 yards from the opposition goal?

Surely it's all about managing risk.

 

I agree sometimes it's too risky and he shouldn't do it...but sometimes we need to take a risk too. That said I still believe our forwards (and Andy Cook was just as bad ) are woefully slow at coming to collect that type of ball. They just stand and wait for it instead of coming to the ball. It invites the defender to step up and cut it out

 

And a word about Khela. I thought he looked Ok in his brief cameo, but no way does he look like cover for Smallwood. So we'll need another plan for when Richie's yellow cards catch up with him, which is looking like sooner rather than later.

 

Kavanagh particularly is driving me mad for that at present. He's making it far too easy for centre halves.

 

It'll probably be Pattison and Sarcevic paired together I'd imagine. Not ideal but that's probably about the best option unless there's someone else we haven't seen play there yet can do a job, such as a Johnson.

 

Have we got another Johnson we don't know about?