The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Crewe Alexandra Saturday 26th August 2023 3:00pm

You would rather us play out of our skin and draw 0-0 than win 1-0 dirty??? Come on fella, its a results business. We don't get points for playing well. The performances can come at some point, but we cannot change results.

Clean sheet was welcome against a decent Crewe side that were averaging over 2 goals a game this season. Their first loss as well.

 

My concern is that our performances have seemed to regress game after game. The first half of Saturday was as bad, if not worse, than the first half at Morecambe. It seems we follow up a slight improvement of a performance or a result, with an even greater regress the next game.

The difference between the first and second half on Saturday was night and day, in terms of how comfortable the players looked. I like Oyegoke, but right now Halliday just has to be starting and in a back 4. That doesn’t mean we cannot revert to a back 3 later, but use the time in training, Pizza Trophy games, towards end of games when we are hopefully comfortably winning, to get this formation working. Right now it isn’t working and we at times look lost.

 

Given his age - I could easily see a Preston, Hull or Rotherham forking out a few quid for Young. Providing he keeps up the good work. They usually invest and loan back out.

 

How is a four goal swing in our favour a regression?? It wasn't a vintage performance by any stretch of the imagination but in the end it was steady 1-0 win where we could have had more and they didn't look like scoring. Much improvement to be made but I'm filing it under 'professional performance' after the debacle at Morecambe, baffled you can consider yesterday a regression from last week frankly

 

I think Telford leaving has been a real kick for them.

It seemed like a few established players left and a few prospects were brought in and there was a lot of concern but they started the season well and then their real talisman left. I know he hasn't scored perhaps as many as he might have wanted but he was a leader in the squad from what i've read online when he left

 

Bar the odd game here and there I’m yet to see a Mark Hughes City side play front foot, free flowing football. Have been brought up watching City (for the most part) playing with one or two wingers/full backs bombing down the wing, this laborious build up play is hard to take even if we do pick up the 3 points. Call it 3-5-2 or 3-4-3, Cookie has been isolated for the whole of Hughes tenure and until we up the tempo we’re going to have to sit and watch the team grind out wins. Other than the Bury friendly I’m struggling to think of many games where we’ve scored 3 or more goals. This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience but I’m struggling to muster enough interest to change my plans if they clash with a game on a Saturday.

 

Crawley beat MK Dons 2-1 at home and lost 0-1 to Gillingham. Looks like its a fairly tough place to go. It was a bad result but not an earth shattering one either.

 

His football is all about controlling the ball.

He'd rather have 89 minutes of dull playing it about and then one incisive move that creates a winning goal and get a 1 nil win.

I'd say that first half against Crewe is pretty much how he would like things to be. Us trying to pass the ball about, them not creating much and then us getting a goal.

 

I said before the Crawley game that I’d rather play them a few games in once reality hits how poor they are. First games of the season tend to be a lottery.

 

Maybe that’s why he’s becoming more unpopular with the fan base (at the moment). Premier league fans accept that the keeper will take short dead ball kicks and pass around in pretty triangles at the back. League 2 fans like to see chaos reign, balls in the box, wingers bombing forward. If Hughes gets it right, we’ll look like Barcelona but at the moment we’re so far off it formation wise that we’re having to change it every 45 minutes and the one he starts with is always the one that isn’t working.

 

The thing is, they've already had a lot of time to work on this new system. They were doing it throughout preseason and presumably have continued to do so every day in training but despite that, we still don't look anywhere near getting to grips with it. We haven't recruited the right sort of players to play in a back 5 or 3 so unless we do so in the next few days, the whole idea of it needs sacking off or Hughes is going to be left with a team of demotivated, lacking in confidence players who aren't enjoying their football and consequently, won't be winning many games. We have players that fit into and are comfortable with a 4,3,3, 4,2,3,1, 4,3,2,1 and even the opinion dividing 4,4,2 (although an addition of a winger or 2 wouldn't go amiss for that), so let's go back to what we know and give these players a fighting chance of achieving success this season.

 

Almost literally in this case, as we'd have won if their player had been sent off first as he should have been for legging Pattison when he was breaking away after being booked for kicking the ball away early on but the ref bottled it - completely different game if he goes instead of Oyegoke

 

And a win there suddenly would put us level on points with the autos as it stands, so early in the season is it

 

I thought he had a pretty decent, uncontroversial game to be fair. Waved away some spurious pen claims from their forwards. Issued two deserved bookings to our players for stupidly kicking the ball away and preventing a free kick being taken. Wasn't unnecessarily fussy or 'look at me'-ish. If I hadn't known it was Darren Drysdale I'd never have guessed, from his performance.

 

Agree with this, he was a distinct contrast to the bloke in the Colchester game who seemed to be under the impression that we had all paid to watch him run around. He missed a couple of things, particularly Cook getting manhandled, but overall it was a most un-Drysdale like performance. I'm sure he'll make up for it his next time at VP.

 

It's right in front of where we sit. Never a penalty in a million years, should have been a corner given though.

 

Any update on Cook's fitness? Was it a knock/ muscle strain?

 

I saw little to no improvement in performance between the two games first half performances, with the only difference been Morecambe were more clinical in front of goal.

Of course the results tell a very different story. However given we were at home and have lead to believe this is where we will play on the front foot, I saw virtually none of that until the 35-40th minute. In contrast Crewe pressed us, were comfortable in possession of the ball and managing us when they didn’t have it. We looked even more clueless and nervous than we did at Morecambe so hence I’m struggling to see the first half as anything other than regression.

Fortunately second half was much improved but still not ground breaking.

I like to believe I try to watch us with an objective, logical and realistic level of expectations. However I’m really struggling to find much of that so far this season. I don’t believe this is a squad of bad players, but I’m creeping into the mindset that we’re just not been lead correctly or set up best for success.

 

Or the headcase who reffed the Crawley game.