The Voice - Match preview Newport County vs Bradford City Saturday 23rd September 3:00pm

Except Jake Reeve's injuries weren't physical

 

They were originally

 

Who’s going to this game? Have we sold 100 tickets yet?

 

I’m going and seriously wish I wasn’t.

 

The poor showing at Mansfield against their reserves has done it for me. We would n’t have scored if we were still playing.

 

Mansfield with the same team won 3-0 at Accrington in their next match

 

Whilst we needed a last minute equaliser after a shocking performance at home to another injury hit team in Grimsby

 

Reminds me of a random chant I heard years ago when we played at Oldham...................."You couldn't score with Julie Hall". Not sure who Julie Hall was but I guessed at the time she must have been a a bit "loose".

 

Reserves? They had players out but so did we. I'm as p****d off as anyone but let's be accurate.

 

So far this season we have played against teams that were vastly changed due to injury in Grimsby & Mansfield, ones that rested half their first team in Accrington & Wrexham, one that shipped 8 goals in a cup match and hadn't scored in a league match in 10 plus hours in Harrogate and two that had so many new players, most of them were introduced to each other in the dressing room in Crawley & Morecambe, and have scored the massive sum of 4 goals, shipped 8 and not "won" any of them. It's not good is it.

 

To be accurate I’m not sure we had 11 players unavailable due to injury or had a forward playing right back. Anyone defending, our happy to just get a point from any of our last 3 performances needs to find a way to raise their own bar before they are sat at VP with many more empty seats than occupied one’s.

 

We had Cook and Pattison out that would have been certain starters? Who else?
Also, we started the season at Crawley with both of those players in the team so you could argue we were full strength against a team put together in a week from non league.
We fortuitously beat Colchester and Crewe whilst also struggling to beat Accy Stanley’s reserves.
Don’t kid yourself that when Cook and Pattison return that it will be any better. It won’t

 

Actually Pattison has been a breath of fresh air and is a big miss in midfield. Cook is never going to replicate his freak season last year however fit he is. Am I the only one not expecting him to make a difference?

 

The main difference will be he’s not Derbyshire.

 

Not heard much about Pattison's injury. I think it happened whilst I was away on holiday and didn't take much notice at the time.

What is his injury and when is he expected to be back?

Keep hearing updates on Cook and even Chapman but not Pattison.

 

Hughes said that Pattison pulled his hamstring. Said he felt it at HT in the Wrexham game, thought he'd take him off as it wasn't too bad but it got worse by Wednesday and he'd be 2 or 3 weeks all being well.

So should be back anytime now, as long as it was just a standard pull.

 

I think Cook and Pattison returning will help to an extent, but it isn’t gonna transform us from the mid table side we smack of being, into the promotion contenders we wish we were.

only a change of manager will achieve that.

 

Newport 2 Bradford 0

P45 for Hughesy.

 

Bet placed at 11/2.

 

Mid table is optimistic from the performances I've seen. I genuinely think around where we are (17th) is about right and if anything you could argue we've been fortunate not to have been a couple of points at least, worse off.