21-22 relegation

I like Mark Hughes confidence, he knew we shouldn’t have lost that match, but when you are in the dumps nothing goes your way. However, rather than feeling sorry for ourselves, he actually said we will get more work into the lads, and we will get better! That high level of confidence will feed through to the players. He also said we will need every single one of them, so nobody need be worried on that score. I find his press comments inspiring. No panic, no criticising players in public. He also came over and clapped the fans yesterday which also was good PR, stick with us, and we will get better. Not once has he mentioned relegation, not in his thinking. What he has achieved so far is outstanding. Honestly we were heading for the trap door with Adams.

 

Adams, his demeanour, his tactics, his PR, his recruitment etc were a disaster for the club and agree with you he was taking us one way fast.
I agree with everything you say about Hughes so far but it doesn't change we have a bunch of players who are incapable of playing for the full 90 minutes and results wise our form is abysmal. Trust me Mark won't publicly mention the R word but he will feel a whole lot better when he can manoeuvre them into securing points

 

Agree, so will I by the way We have decent players to come back which will help.

 

If only some of these returning players were defenders.

 

One of them is Ridehalgh, who is undoubtedly our best (only?) left back.

 

The way city play at the moment the full back position is exposed just as it was fir Wood last year Foulds ha had two very difficult players to deal with in the last two matches he is a decent full back

 

When Vernam and Walker come back we will start winning games. How long are they out for?

Bass, Foulds/Ride, Paudie, Songoo, Hendrie, Vernam, Watt, Evans, Cooke, Walker, Cook/Lavery….. is a side Hughes can win matches with.

 

Update on Walker, Vernam, Ridehalgh and Pereira

 

Good news about Walker. He is the type Hughes should be looking to bring in this summer

 

Be very interesting to see how Hughes handles him, and talking of which, I land in Manchester on Saturday, will get to see the PV match and maybe the Hartlepool one. I can feel a change in fortunes!

 

Welcome home mate, let's hope if you can take a game in you get the result we all want .

 

Cheers Dave

 

We need to find a win from somewhere. More attacking talent will help, but that defence is going to cost us.

A full rebuild is needed in the summer and Hughes needs to be backed properly. Carry on as we are, and we'll be going down next season.

 

He's a 24 year old who has hardly played any football. Has shown glimpses of good form but has also been torn a new arsehole in the last two games. Jury is firmly out as to whether the lad is a good full back based on a couple of dozen first team games.

 

The Jury is in. He's not good enough. We need to really drive up standards. We know what good full backs look like at this level - he ain't it.

 

I must be the dissenting voice on the jury then. Until the Mansfield game I don't think he'd put a foot wrong and he was simply average against Swindon. One bad game and one average one vs. the other 14 appearances he's made doesn't make him a bad player. I think he deserves a 1 year contract for next season.

 

Strictly as a backup player, maybe. Though I don't see why we'd need him and Staunton.

If Foulds is the standard of starting XI player we have next season, forget going up, and think very much about being in a relegation fight. The back 4 he's in, is the worst we've ever had.

If we want to be successful at this level, we need to think back to the quality of back 4 we had when we were last successful in League 2.

 

People were saying the same about Wood last season after he had two good years with us. In the last couple of matches he has had opponents who have been very difficult to play in our current set up where fullbacks are exposed. In my opinion he is worth another contract.

 

I think people are in denial about just where we are.

Have you read this? Unless we recruit markedly better players across all areas of the team, we're bang in trouble next season.

Bradford City averaging just one point per game in last year | Bradford Telegraph and Argus (thetelegraphandargus.co.uk)

 

Of course we need better players in key positions but it doesn’t mean that all are surplus to requirements