The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Tranmere Rovers Tuesday 14th February 2023 @ 7:45pm

I'm not one to go bagging fans but last night the players came round to applaud the fans after a rare home victory of late and it reminded me of British tourists trying to leave a flight that has only just landed in Benidorm. Not a first world problem by any means, more an observation that there would be less than a thousand fans left as the fans walk round. It's not a one off, happens regular and it's literally only five minutes out of your life

 

haha nah I get what you mean, I just think it's a completely random selection of our fans who are moaning gits haha

 

Only older fans I'm not sure that's true and a bit unfair IMO.

 

Relax Dennis you’ll do yourself some mischief

 

Its a new era and Hughes has made it plain the way he wants the team to set up, as I posted at one time during the first half our possession was 74%, which sounds great unfortunatly 70% of it was played in our own half, as it turned out last night we collected all 3 points but that has not always been the case recently especially at home, and IMO that was the frustrations/anxiety some of the crowd were showing, but not sure booing would change things its something we are going to have to live with.

 

The Salford home game was available on i follow yet we still got a huge crowd. You remind me of Bob Lord former Burnley chairman in the 60s who said there was far too much football on tv and it will kill the crowds. At the time we had one highlights game on match of the day and one local highlight game on Sunday afternoon with no live games at all other than the FA cup final. Then Sky came along and we have saturated live football and crowds are booming. As for your argument about Gillingham away,how many can afford the time to go down there on a Tuesday night? Surely i follow gives fans a chance to watch the game and City benefits financially. Win Win all round.

 

The possession football we witnessed at the start of the season versus that over the last few games is very different though. A willingness to get it forward quicker when opportunity presents and go long / channels if need be. Whether that is down to practice or personnel (Clayton has been exceptional in possession and passing) is the question - probably a bit of both. Smallwood played some really telling balls first half yesterday, including one that was a part of the move for Walker's opener. Introduction of Clayton probably makes his job easier too.

Some fans can't or won't see the subtleties. I am seeing progress. Derbyshire or equivalent up front is key I think. Eisa can't play that role. Oliver not cute enough? Let's see.

 

I didn’t use the word only, but in my experience of those that sit near me this is true, when I say older I don’t mean OAP, more middle age and up. It may not be fair, but neither is booing players who are giving their all and winning, or in one or two cases giving Smallwood and Clayton personal abuse(this was by someone middle aged rather than the older spectrum) and telling them to feck off back to wherever.

 

Dont worry @AJP it could be worse @Loyalbantam has been known to refer to us older generation as coffin dodgers .

 

As did a certain Mr Brian Clough he said we should not allow more televised games it would deter fans from attending games, he didn't get much wrong with regards football but I'd suggest with many Premier clubs having long waiting lists for season ticket holds he got this one wrong, although different times.

 

I think it's actually the away support at VP that's a big part of the problem Kev, that and the fact that the home crowd seem bored by the fixtures.

When you have 50 fans looking lost in the corner there is no one for the home crowd to bounce off or respond to but when you compare it to the times it's been fuller I think the home sections respond accordingly.

Of course we also need performances and not to be playing unattractive fixtures week after week but if we can just get that promotion, better teams with larger away attendances will automatically lift the VP faithful imo.

 

You didnt, in your reply you have made it clearer, there are always fans who single out certain players and yes it's uncalled for maybe a word from fellow fans would have calmed them down.

 

It's like groundhog day. You can actually pinpoint where the ball is going before it's played a lot of the time yet we seem completely oblivious (or unwilling) to spot and react to the danger.

 

I think despite the result the performance was back to the way we played earlier in the season. I thought from the Harrogate game we changed the emphasis a little and still playing possession football we mixed it up more. But the way we played last night was possession in our own half possession with little end product

 

The formation doesn't help. The times when we went from front to back quickly was basically Clayton -> Walker/Smallwood -> Cook. Always through the middle.

When we have the ball, what we need to do is have Clayton sit between Platt and Stubbs and then Halliday and Ridehalgh can push up the flanks to create width. It also needs Smallwood, Walker and Gilliead to drop a little deeper to pull the Tranmere midfield with them.

I think things will move more like this now we have Clayton in the team. It still feels quite narrow though and I don't feel Eisa and Cook gel well. It may be time to bring Costelloe back in to partner Cook. If he's as good as Burnley reckon then let's see him play.

 

Meh. I wonder how many times players try and force something after hearing boos, and then lose possession. Better to wait for the opportunity. There is a reason Clayton is excelling and that is experience and being able to ignore the boos

 

It wasn't to suggest it's only people towards the older end of the demographic who piss and moan, but you and another poster seemed to be suggesting it was somehow young people to blame for the flat and sometimes toxic atmosphere and I'm just pointing out in my experience where I sit that's not the case.

With regards to the noise made, as recently as the Parky era the place used to be rocking and if we went behind if anything the noise got louder, I used to love at the time we'd support the team no matter what so it's not just a 60/70s thing. I only mentioned the last 5 years being poor in response to you saying it was the last 3/4 years it was happening.

 

I don't think I've seen a club with better home support than that last season under Parky - it was always bouncing. But it took time to build that - 5 consecutive seasons of progress in the league and 2 phenomenal cup runs too. When he started out it was far from rocking, even though be got promoted in his first full season in charge.

I think / hope that we are in a similar position now to back then. After 6 seasons of decline, this is highly likely to be the first that we make progress. Once we've proved that this season is just another false dawn fans will buy into the process. The reason for last night is that fans didn't really believe we'd see the game out but a few more results like that and opinions will soon change.

Oh, and move the NW corner back into the Kop.

 

Any news on the Derbyshire injury? Is it a bad one?

Lewis Grabban, Fraizer Campbell and Conor Wickham are all available if we need another one up top.