The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Grimsby Town Saturday 9th September 12:30pm - sky sports

One of the worst attacking performances I've ever seen.
No cohesion, no plan, no threat from set pieces.
Nothing.
My only crumb of comfort is defensively we looked ok and we have no Cook, Smith, Pattison, Oliver, Chapman or Odour to call on this week.
Playing with one player up top by himself is bad enough but when we play with a 11 stone veteran against 2 experienced league 2 cloggers, with no support then we will always be 2nd best.
To come away with a point was a relief but for the majority of todays match I was bored, frustrated and really contemplating not going to watch City until either we change our ways or start putting performances in.

 

Dave i very really call a manager out and never have done, but its obvious things are not going to change, IMO this is not the way a club with our aspirations of promotion is going to go forward, im afaid its time for Sparks to do the right thing for the club si we can all move forward

 

That's fair enough Dave. The idea of another manager change doesn't thrill me, and if I had confidence it'd come good, I'd be ok with plugging away. I just have very, very little confidence in Hughes. I have little confidence in the football operation at the club either. For a club our size to continually make such ham fisted attempts to get out of this league is hugely depressing. We're cloaked in low ambition and incompetence.

 

Things I don't want to see again this season -
3 CBs
Derbyshire in a city shirt
Smallwood as captain

Things I fully expect to see when we play Harrogate next week-
3CBs
Derbyshire in a city shirt
Smallwood as captain

 

2 more goals so far for Young today I see

 

I couldn't understand what position he had the kid Pointon playing the first half today, Darbyshire playing the Cook role, for an old pro you'd think he'd be aware of the offside rule by now, how can't someone with his experience lead the line and get caught offside 4/5 times in the first half, when we did get forward he got caught offside, that suggests to me he has to play right up with the last defender as he's no chance of a one on one with said defender otherwise, brought on as a late sub is as good as it should get for the guy.

 

So far he’s a waste of a wage.

 

I’ll give Hughes credit for picking Pointon, didn’t think there was a hope in hell of him starting. I’ll give Hughes zero marks for that first half performance which let’s be honest wasn’t a one off, the Crewe first half was just as bad. How he can be so stubborn to play a system that is clearly unsuitable for the players concerned is unbelievable. Interesting to see how he starts against Harrogate.

 

Late on in the game someone fired a long ball out to the lad Pointon (it wasn't the greatest pass) he tried to bring it down with his heel and only just failed if it had come off it would have left his marker for dead, great thinking by the lad, I had Gilly as my MOTM but on reflection maybe Pointon shaded it, but with that shower to feed off I thought it was a decent debut.

 

Its obvious the lads going to have a great future in the game mate.

 

The deflection took it wide of the keeper

Joking aside, it was a great strike and that's EXACTLY what I've been asking from him. Regardless of it going in or not he showed the desire to get the shot away and I'll never criticise him for that.

I've been working today and didn't see all of the game so I won't comment on his performance as I didn't see enough of it but 10/10 for his positivity on the edge of the box.

Let's see more please Mr Gillead because it is in the locker somewhere, you just need to bring it out more regularly!

 

This about sums that comment up :
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” at no time in the first half did we press Grimsby stop taking fans for fools Mark.

 

The fact that Pointon kept trying and didn’t let his head go down despite the shitshow that was going on around him in the first half is a massive credit to him.
It may be just youthful exuberance but he should be very proud of his 90 minute performance.

 

I'm trying not to get carried away but he could completely turn out fortune's around. To me, he showed 4 or 5 flashes that made me think he could catapult us out of the rut we've been in for the last 5 years.

 

The second half formation change and Young Pointon was the only thing kept me from going early today and me going early would have been a first that’s how frustrated I feel with Hughes and this team.

 

It was dire mate. The first half was as bad as it gets this season. 5 at the back etc.

Gillead has probably done enough to start next week as Macdonald looked slow, clunky, and a complete crab.

changing to four at the back helped but it took us to go a goal behind for the stubborn dinosaur to change it.

One shot on goal all game at home to an average Grimsby side. One. The bloke is an embarrassment - Jake Young is writing Hughes’ resignation letter for him week by week.

derbyshire played like an aging corpse. Offered nothing. The young loanees would have surely been more mobile, as they showed in their cameos.

if we had gone 0-2 down today the crowd would have handed him it. Instead, Gillead saves his a**s and we have ‘Mark Hughes’ Bradford army’ chants ringing out of the stands that paper over the cracks and buy him more time - Sparks prob thinks our fans went home happy - just as Darren Moore in the studio did.

Hughes out!

we could do with losing a few in a row to get him out ASAP when the fans turn.

 

It is difficult to know what to say about that game. The first half was as bad as I have seen, at no time did I think we would score. We were sat so deep, and a gap between midfield and our front men resembling the great canyon.

Second half better, but why leave Derbyshire on?? It was clear he was finished. Afoka looks good showed desire and good moves, but he needed to be on for the whole game. Our lad Pointon was really good which brings me onto my worry. We have all these young lads who are not getting a game, why?

I have no words as to our manager it has all been said. You have to attack to score goals and win matches if you want promotion. I am fairly confident that this will not be happening this season.

 

Some of the Halliday bashing is unfair. There were far worse performances today. Jamie Walker is an attacking midfielder and his floated corner deliveries were as worse as anything Halliday put in.

Halliday is solid and linked with Pointon well. Get off his back.

 

It very much looks that way, there's a guy who sits 2 rows down from me we've had a few disagreements over the years but when the Grimsby fans started chanting "sacked in the morning you're getting sacked in the morning" I started laughing and went along with others sat near clapping, he was not amused making his default comment "why don't you support the players/manager" I said if your happy with what your seeing crack on, a few around me laughed, I thought I could be classed as a happy clapper at times, seriously some fans were happy with that first half performance, unbelievable Geoff.

 

People who slate Halliday know nothing about football.