The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Barrow Saturday 11th November 2023 3:00pm

I hope to God we give Tomkinson a chance.

 

I thought Ridehalgh was badly at fault originally, the more I see of Ridehalgh the more I see him going backwards compared with Halliday he offers little going forward, another look at their goal wont go amiss.

 

Agreed. We look incapable of scoring more than 1 per game, and cant keep clean sheets. A combination like that means one thing.

 

Night and day, lol, I'm not having a dig but the main difference was a slightly higher tempo coupled with slightly less control.

Didn't really think much of it, but you're right that it's a building block and we know for sure Walker isn't a winger, so we move on and try and do better.

 

Don't think today was as bad as some are making out. There were some signs to give some optimism and hopefully Alexander will have garnered enough from the game to know how to improve the side. Smith (albeit his goal aside) and Osadebe should be nowhere near the starting 11. Ridehalgh and Taylor need replacing with faster calmer players, maybe Ride's injury will force that in any case.
Tompkinson, Chappie, Wilson and Gilly to replace aforementioned players and Walker retaining his central role would see us far better set up IMHO. Let's see if the gaffer has seen what a lot of us have for a while and makes the necessary changes. I live in hope!

 

His assessment of the match was fair I thought based on listening to it.

Fair criticism of the Ref in that he seemed to be trying to level things out all the time in free kicks - both teams got some they shouldn't have.

That he wanted the ball moved faster.

Wasn't an ideal start or helpful with the injuries but he didn't use them as an excuse for the score other than saying it would have been nice if we hadn't conceded early and had the first 20 minutes to see if the team absorbed what he'd been trying to get across to them.

Didn't shirk the "could Chapman have come on" question.

It just sounded like he'd watched the game I had listened to which rarely seemed to be the case with Hughes and gave me more confidence in him.

 

Stop splitting hairs.

 

Smith should be nowhere near the team?

That's probably the most puzzling comment of the season.

 

I'd give any of the 8 cones around the pitch a chance before Taylor. He's just a terrible player who could potentially get away with it if he had someone with pace alongside him but we don't and given Stubbs is head and shoulders the better defender then Taylor should be back in the stands.

 

Walker lost the wing back which created the overload. Still the shot hardly scorched in. It might be unlucky to a degree but it was incredibly soft and what’s galling is the hours of prep before a game goes out of the window in 30 seconds. That is poor / unprofessional.
They looked short of confidence until we scored. Then I feit we were the better side. It was noticeable that the ref didn’t get any grip of the barrow players going down when not hurt. The keeper took the piss completely when he was injured. Just happened to be in a sustained spell of city pressure. We’ve had some decent refs recently but todays let barrow get away with time wasting and faking injuries.
All that said we have to be more ruthless. Barrow took their only opportunity in the second half. For a change we didn’t get what we deserved today. Hopefully Alexander learns quickly what he is working with.

 

I hoped in the last 15/20mins our sub Osadebe would be subbed for Chapman.I just think Osadebe sometimes looks ok with the ball but then does bugger all with it or loses it in great positions.

 

Puzzling?!?! Let's be honest he's very poor, no real pace, weak as piss in the way he gets knocked off the ball so easily, offers absolutely nothing in the build-up play and the goal he got today, my mum could have scored! We can't afford to have what they used to call a Johnny hanger in the team. Jake Young got pelters for not doing enough elsewhere in his game, but for me he is a far better player than Smith.

 

The clean sheets means trying out some more centre half pairing combinations instead of the leaky Stubbs/Taylor and another left back,hope we haven’t signed a injury prone player in Richards.

 

Couldn't disagree more. He's exactly what we've lacked up front, and should have had 5 goals in 2 games. He'll have to settle for only 4 lol

His movement in the area was our only threat, and he should have bagged twice

 

Another Saturday night ruined.

The NW Corner should be ashamed of themselves today with that pathetic chanting. Talk about bad timing. I wonder if they were just swapping the brain cell around and someone dropped it?

 

No idea what’s wrong with Cook but I’d be getting Young back asap
Cook needs some time on bench.
Nothing but useless most of this season

 

I do not get the lack of game time for Tomkinson given what we are putting out in the centre of defence. No idea whether he's good enough but surely he can't be worse than Taylor???

 

Am wondering that myself Morley. Surely he must be worth a look.

 

Well quite. I forgot to add that his shooting isn't particularly good either!
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one Jon. Time will prove either one of us wrong mate.

 

That "ASAP" moment is January 1st. Given we're away and the training towards won't involve him, I'm guessing it's probably more likely January 2nd that the recall is announced. There's 8/9 league games between now and potentially seeing Young again, with games against Notts, Salford, Gillingham, Morecambe, Stockport & Crewe in that run..... can't see many wins with our current lot.