Rochdale (H) in the Leasing.com Trophy

Reeves did really well, but a few other thoughts:

GSK looked ropey. I remember reading something in the T&A a year or so ago, where it talked about how the club had high hopes for him, on the basis that his distribution was very good but that he needed to be taught how to 'keep goal'. Pretty basic flaw, right there. But all of that was shown up last night.

Longridge - some good deliveries and likes to get forward, but caught out in possession a few times. Definitely backup to Wood for the foreseeable.

French and POC. Exposed at times. Both have some promise and they'll be better for a bit of game time. AOC and BRE look more and more like our first choice pick though.

Anderson, Patrick and Oteh. All garbage. In fact, at times I struggled to tell them apart - physically similar, similar running styles and similar lack of ability on the ball. No awareness of what's around them, any of them, and little in the way of ability to pull things off. Oteh is probably marginally the better of the 3, but that ain't saying much.

Not a Devine fan, but he did OK by his standards. Think he's better as an attacking mid than a defensive one.

Ismail did ok. Cooke did ok. Taylor didn't pull up any trees, but it was his first game and he was in an unfamiliar position, so we'll see.

 

My biggest recollection is not individual players but the playing style. Whilst Dale played the ball on the ground, working from the back, finding pockets of space pulling our players out of shape on a consistent basis, City the old hung ho style of play with long ball, aimless at times, giving up possession. The differing styles so noticeable.

 

I hyped Oteh up a bit after Saturday when I thought his all round game was really good but last night he was poor and that penalty was dreadful.

Bang on about Anderson and Patrick too, especially anderson. The moment for me was in the closing stages he tried to nutmeg a rochdale player in our defensive third, failed, fouled their lad then threw a strop about it. Get rid.

I thought mellor was quite poor too which is disappointing because I think RB is our real weak area atm.

 

A good number of vocal Bradford City fans won't accept that style though. After a few passes around the back someone will say get rid of it, or someone will moan at the midfielders for keeping the ball and passing sideways. Law is hated by a fair few fans but he played that style of play well.

 

I thought we came out and played some decent stuff, without doubt the turning point was that sloppy penalty miss, score that and it's game on, but our heads dropped, Rochdale made it 1-1 and never looked like losing, a few huffs and puffs in the Rochdale box second galf but. not a lot of creative football.

 

You must have been watching a different game to me. That was not long ball.

We had little Oteh down the middle. I don't remember him being asked to head the ball.once.

We played the occasional ball in behind but why wouldn't you when your front 3 are quick.

 

I think Anderson should be thinking about finding a new club. There are a lot of players ahead of him or soon will be

 

Agreed but he should never have been offered a deal in the first place.

 

Good point. I'm less precious about style, as long as its effective. Direct football can be entertaining and effective, done right. Liverpool, for example are more direct than Man City. Still great to watch. Extreme example, I know.

At our level, I think the biggest constraint has been the quality in midfield. Only Cooke has real technical ability. A midfield 3 of Reeves at the base, with Cooke and Devitt in front would allow us to play a completely different style of football, based on possession.

Ultimately, I just want out of this division. For now, I don't care about style if its working.

 

That decision still baffles me. He's probably not on much, but we have 4-5 players who're all of limited quality, all likely on low deals. Our squad is too big - but we lack depth in quality. I'd rather bin off Gibson, Devine and Anderson and just have a Cooke level player.

 

I agree with your above @Faithful Bantam but when they were offered 12 months contracts the squad was very bare, was Bowyer thinking better having the likes of the above mentioned on board and try and bring better quality in or just hope we can get better signed on.
I believe Bowyer has faith in Devine to prove himself, I personally can't see the lad being a regular if I'm honest but although the above are not the quality we need to move forward imagine where we would have been with our desimated midfield resently.
So for me they are players who will be bench players if when the likes of Palmer, Devitt, Prichard, Cooke, etc are fit again.

 

Surprised by this comment, I watched the full game and don’t remember us going long at all, in fact one of their goals came out from us getting caught out trying to play it out. The only long balls I remember were Reeves switching them play and most were accurate. Think the stars agree with me as well as we made more passes and had a higher success rate, not that it matters just definitely was watching a different game to me.

 

Highlights.......!!

 

I think this maybe something Bowyer alluded to a few weeks back when he stated he saw something from a player that he hadnt noticed before and that it opened his eyes a little.

Since then devine has , definately the games ive seen anyway, has been given what appears to be a more forward brief.

I actually think he has improved a bit, he can go at a man, was it Crawley or port vale when he beat the full back a few times, he is playing the ball forwards more and is obviously now getting a few shots off. He seems to have grown in confidence a little with game time.

He has his limitations like most, and probably he understands he is back to 4/5 choice when players are back, but for me he offers so much more than patrick and Anderson and its a bit unfair when he lumbered in comparisons with them

 

When Devine made his debut he was very much an "up and at 'em" midfielder, getting stuck in and getting up and down the pitch. He looked as if he could develop into a useful asset to the squad. Then he got his injuries and in between seemed to become the back up right back meaning he concentrated on defence. When he got on the field as a sub in midfield he did not seem to know whether to go forward or stay back and often was in no mans land. Recently I feel he has had a more free role in midfield and is getting his attacking brain back together a bit. Long may it continue as every little helps the team.

 

Some decent passages of play there. But that penalty was woeful. He might as well have just rolled it to the keeper.

 

Their keeper pulled off some good saves, maybe that was another one of the differences between the two sides..

 

He’d be better off finding a new career because he’s not got a long career as a professional footballer ahead of him.

 

He's an Arsenal wonderkid, good chance we can sell him for a few million IMHO.

 

Add to the Isiah Rankin and Tyrell Robinson list of ex Arsenal youth team players to have flourished at VP