The Voice - Match preview Northampton Town vs Bradford City Saturday 29 April 2023 @ 3:00pm

Can not believe some of our so called fans. We go to Crewe on Wednesday looking for a win that could push us within touching distance of automatic promotion, Yes it is still a long shot, but the chance is still there.
Win mid week and next Monday should be a sell out.

 

Wow what a week of highs and lows.

Imagine if we actually get 3rd place on the last day of the season. Mental scenes at VP. Two more wins is entirely possible. Orient have gone to the beach already based on todays result.

 

We will beat both Crewe and Orient.....but will Northampton and Stockport fail to win?

 

I criticised Cook before he was left out but I have to say since then not only has his goalscoring been brilliant but his all round play as well. He no longer fouls every time he challenges and in this instance you have to give massive credit to Hughes who obviously worked hard with him. I see a big Mansfield fan every Sunday in Filey (some good banter tomorrow) he said their fans couldn’t wait to get Cook out the door. So his hard work and Hughes coaching have transformed him from a jobing centre forward to one of the best.

 

Wow!!! WOW WOW WOW!!!! How about that!

I was sat in the home end, main stand, at the far end to the city fans. Don’t under estimate Lewis’ save in the 1:1 in the second half - brilliant.

I thought we started really well for the first 15mins when Cook should have scored. Absolutely great headed for the goal, he climbed so well. First half we were the better team. Second half was all them but despite their chances, they didn’t feel relentless that they demolished us. Better, 100% yes. But we battled well, Stubbs was very good and thought Halliday did well as was over run against two for some of the game.

The goal - wow!!! How many times have we been on the other end of that?? Did we deserve it? No. Do i care? Not in the slightest! Bravo lads - what a battling result that was.

 

Did you manage to contain yourself when we scored the winner? A better man than me if you did!!!

 

Yep, it's definitely majority Hughes' squad.

He's getting a little extra patience from me, personally, though, given he's never managed at anything remotely close to this level, and he's had a successful season.

He does need to make changes, to HIS signings, but he'll get it right. I've no doubt we'll be competitive in either division next year.

 

See my post #193 in this thread for an article about the legal background. All very murky. Council money disappearing and so on.

 

He's certainly improved under Hughes, but he still contributed before he was dropped after his poor performance at Carlisle, you've watch plenty of Bradford City strikers in the past who's main job was to score goals, I can't remember Campbell, Mills,Futcher, McCole, Stokes, Leighton, breaking their balls getting back to help out, in fact the only one who stands out with regards helping out was Hanson who never stopped grafting for the team.

 

He's just a young lad who hasn't coped with starting in big games.

 

We've conceded just 39 goals this season.

So clearly, aspects of the defensive organisation must have worked, i.e. zonal marking (if that's what we do by the way)

Or can you name a season when we conceded less goals per matches? Parky's last season was 40. But even that great promotion team of 98/99 conceded 47.

 

Good post @Ollylondonbantam but being 1 - 0 own at the start of the second half Northampton had nothing to lose by throwing the kitchen sink at us, we rode or luck at times and Lewis once again made some excellent saves but I always expected an onslaught second half, it was very similar to last Saturdays game against Gillingham we had nothing to lose and were far the better side second half...................init great to snatch all three points.

 

Ah! I get it. A defence, that concedes less than a goal a match, must be crap at zonal marking - because some of those goals have been conceded when playing that system.

Let's ignore the times when we've defended lots of balls when playing that system.

I suppose using the same logic, we could argue that Cooky has been weak - because he's missed a few sitters


Incidentally, the conceding of poor goals is separate to us not scoring enough.

 

Oh what?

 

I agree, pretty much. He's definitely worth backing. Tweaks to his squad and approach will take us up next season.

 

The strong defensive performance is due to being generally very good in open play. Imo, from dead balls we've been very susceptible to conceding and a lot of it stems from the system and the fact that we always end up with Smallwood on the back post. The majority of the time he's not even close enough to make a challenge, let alone win the header.

In fairness to Smallwood too though, it's often one of their 'big lads' attacking that back post but MH should have found a way to resolve that weakness by now. Perhaps even just a tweak in the way they line up to help defend the back post a bit more?

 

To be honest, during the first half of the season, I remember the press making a big deal out of how City hadn't conceded a single goal from a corner. Then we conceded one against Leyton Orient away an the following week at home to Northampton, an it all went a little pear shaped from there. Similar could be said for goals conceded from set pieces, barring Colchester away. So clearly, the plan was working, but ever since Christmas, said plan has either been found out or we've gotten sloppy as way too many goals have been conceded from such scenarios. Zonal marking can work, if done right. I haven't got a clue what we were doing today as Smallwood got outjumped at the back post an Ridehalgh was no where near his man

 

Fans can nitpick but our defence is the third best in league. What we do for the majority of the time works well. Well enough to see us in with a sniff of the autos. Our weaknesses lie elsewhere.

 

Well it’s not woeful when we sat in 7th.

Don’t you know 7 comes just before 8.

 

Nope. Zonal marking has led to us conceding many goals. I say this because of the number of times an opposition player has had a free header and scored or nearly scored. If there was man marking then there would be more accountability.

It's very easy for opposition to see where we set up our defenders and practice corners and free kicks to time a player to be in a vacant part of the penalty area.

Indeed, the fact we have 11 of our own players in our penalty area makes it even more laughable. We should have conceded less goals than we have.

Also, as another poster has said, conceding one goal when we are scoring 2 or 3 is less of a worry but when it's an effort to get one then poor defensive organisation is a liability.