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

Very fair assessment from Alexander https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gs5g30

 

Pretty generic stuff really -thanked the fans,
only one team in it in second half etc but it didnt sound as dour as Hughes.
Maybe that’s just the way they come across but with Hughes I never really believed that he believed what he was saying.

 

Well that was disappointing but as they say Rome wasn’t built in a day. We just can’t score. They get down the other end and that’s it. Obviously GA will have learnt a lot about his squad today.

 

Sparks rates Gent, says it all

 

My thoughts on the game

I don't want to see Taylor or Ridehalgh play again. Far too slow. Our outlet needs to be the wings, we cant do that because every time Ridehalgh gets the ball, he turns an passes back

Pointon's "position" in the first half left Halliday without much room to maneuver. That being said, his balls down the the wings were shocking. Tulloch did it once an created a chance, Halliday's didnt beat Canavan once.

I think Walker needs to play deeper. He's useless on the wing an has been far too ineffective in CAM

Pointon stepped up. Deserved the MOTM imo

Cook was useless

Osadebe. Dont even get me fecking started

 

Did not think we deserved to win . but certainly did not deserve the defeat.
The stand out again to me was the players reluctance to actually shoot, too often they go for the easy option and move the ball on. Several times it opened up for them today and other than a couple of shots we passed square.
Alexander related to this in his radio interview and said it is something to work on.
Really think Wilson deserves a start, he actually looked up and wanted to run at them and make things happen.
Alexander wants a leaner squad , well he can start by moving on every loan player, all have failed miserably in my eyes.
try and move on Derbyshire and Odasibe, do not know who would take them though and recall East and Young,
Is Richards fit, Ridehough seems to get slower every week.

 

I now realise why I couldn’t even give a ticket away for todays match.

 

And us fans say and see very differently.

It's almost like we can tell the difference between a good or bad player. Yet GENT can't!

 

Onside,We also can’t defend just think of the soft goals we give away.

 

Tulloch wasn't even on the bench m9?

 

Osadebe's volley - just needed a little bit more power........

 

I can't see how any of our defender could be nominated for MOTM apart from Halliday going forward, Sunday morning defending by Ridehalgh for their first but again how many defenders did we have in the box yet Telford was left unmarked in yards of space, but fair do's if you thought Tay;or was MOTM its all about opinions.

 

Some of these players must now realise that their professional careers are in jeopardy. Some of them may never get another professional contract and they might know it

 

I think it was Walker that didn't track his man well enough for their first? I'd have to see a reply but that's how it looked while at the game.

 

And was left in acres of space again a few minutes later.

 

Whilst there's clearly a cloud of negativity surrounding the club right now (and rightly so), I'm actually surprised at the negativity judging solely on today's match.

Sure i'm peeved off at the result, but from the moment we played Walker in the middle with Smallwood and moved Gilly to left back, we bossed most of the game.

Without doubt there were things to work on, I'm not sure who was marking who for their goals, we seem terrified to shoot, and Cook seems a shadow of the player from last season, but there's no way we deserved to lose that. Abit more confidence in the final third and we'd have won that comfortably.

It was night and day from some of the crap we've seen served under Hughes. There are positives to take from that performance and its a building block for Alexander.

 

Yes I know. However if we had banged in a couple goals down the other end we would have been less inclined to panic. I just think we had no composure in either box.

 

How many saves did their keeper make? I can only recall the one from Smith in the 1st half.
Lots of huff and puff but against a well organised workmanlike side we were so lacking quality

 

I agree. I felt a lot more absorbed in the game today than anything Hughes had served up so even though the result didn't go the way we wanted I genuinely feel some optimism going forward.

 

Absolutely.

The roof would have come off if we’d equalised in the last minute.

Compare that with some matches under Hughes when lots of fans were already half way home while we were still playing.