The Voice - Match preview #15: Bradford City vs Burton Albion Saturday 8th November 2025 3:00pm

Edited for accuracy.

 

Nothing really clicked there did it? This team will show up every time against a league challenger, but just seem wobbly against teams toward the bottom.

Poor selections with Kav out wide and Humphrys up top, neither clicked in the slightest in the first half. Humphrys looked better in a two with Cook but even still his decision making is arse. Fair play to Burton, they came and hit their plan well. We just left ourselves far too much to do late on and for some reason needed 27 touches between 3 blokes before attemping a cross.

 

Wonder why Cook didn’t want the penalty? Lost his confidence?

 

GA was telling them to have Pointon take it. Think Humphrys wanted it because he won it but them two and Power were asking the bench and GA gave the thumbs up to Bobby.

 

First hour or so has ultimately killed us there. We were set up all wrong and played straight into Burton's hands. A back three uncomfortable in possession ended up launching it forwards repeatedly which Burton loved as they could mop up the second balls with their spare man in the middle. A blind man could see it happening repeatedly so it was poor from Alexander to wait until we were two down before changing it.

Kavanagh and Kelly just aren't it. Nowhere near it. Kavanagh can't play in the 10 because you need to contribute goals or creativity and he gives us neither. Cook made a big difference when he came on but it's hardly a revolutionary fact that you need a big man if you're going to punt it long all game.

We're in a rut and teams have sussed us out so we need to come up with something different because Burton aren't the first or the last to play like that against us.

 

He should have booked him aswell .............honestly they know certain teams game plan they all do but they let them get away withit time and time again.

Not the reason we lost though we simply lacked energy..........maybe its a reality check that a fair few need .......

 

Cook has missed a fair share of penalties, his career record excluding penalty shoot outs is 11 from 19, in 23/24 he missed 3 from 5 for us. He was also dropped as the main penalty taker for Smallwood back end of 23/24 season. When everyone is fit Sarcevic is the main penalty taker with a career record of 15 from 16 then after that we've not really got anyone who's been a regular penalty taker or has a decent record. I did think about Humphrys as he strikes a ball well but his record is 4 from 8.
In the penalty shoot outs against Newcastle u21 and Grimsby last season Pointon was 2 from 2 so he is probably high up on the list and will have from trust from Alexander to take them.

 

I think today’s results just go to show how wide open and competitive this division is

 

The game was over at halftime.
You can't gift teams a two goal lead and expect a three goal salvo playing high tempo in the last 15 minutes it seldom works like that.
It was all too easy for Burton on the day and we've lost our unbeaten home record by not performing in the first half it's that simple.We lacked quality today our formation,decision making and overall application when on the ball was terrible.
How we are still second tonight is beyond me after such a poor performance.

 

Was like watching league 2 game today. Burton came and basically time wasted as much as I have seen for many years. Even the players warming up were interfering with the game.

Weak ref (again).

We looked laboured in possession and little movement in their half until the last 15 mins when we suddenly decided to have a go.

Humps isn't a CF-played better when he was coming in from out wide.

Why wasn't it a red card when their lad brought Humps down? He was last man wasn't he?

I would have to see their first goal again-thought Walker panicked a bit and palmed the ball into play.

We missed Sarc in the middle. Leigh was not at the races. Metcalfe looked dangerous when he came on. Would like to see him starting more games.

Thought too many players hid today. Too many sideways passes.

GA got his tactics wrong IMHO. I could see we lost midfield straight away with their extra man in there basically running things.

 

Another thing, Alexander is overthinking his CB selections. Picking the bigger player (Wright, Byrne, Kelly) because they're big against direct sides without realising their inability in possession is killing us going forwards. Pennington, McIntyre and Touray until Baldwin is fit please.

 

We've got a give Burton a lot of credit as they were very good for different reasons in both halves. I was saying when they got the free kick before the first goal if they didn't go into half time in the lead they would be fuming, their 2 quick goals killed us like our quick 2 against Huddersfield killed them.

I've said this for a few weeks but I really do think it is time to change from 343 to 3412 as far too often we've been outnumbered in midfield and lost all the 2nd balls. The problem we have now is only Sarcevic is a natural no 10, Pointon can play there but he naturally wants to drift left so it leaves us without options in the middle and right at times.

This break has probably come at a good time to regroup, get some of the injured players back and with Cook I think it gives him a breather so we can get him into a position where he can start back to back games if needed.

The bit that needs working out is the middle 2 and who partners Power as Pattison, Leigh and Metcalfe all offer different things but I think with Leigh and Metcalfe they both like to drop deep for the ball which is what creates the gaps in the middle then the obvious issue with Pattison is you can't rely on him long term as he's always likely to pick up a knock.

 

Poor all over the pitch

Walker - Shouldve done better with their first. Dunno if the Barnsley game rocked his confidence but he’s been shaky ever since

Pennington - worse game for us in a mile. All over the place, distribution shocking as well

Wright - the best of the back 3

Kelly - his outball is solely a hoof up field, or a pass to Touray. Have a guess who Burton would leave as the free man when out of possession?

Nuefville - Did okay, given the fact that Pennington was all over the shop and Kav was running around like a headless chicken

Touray - Think fatigue is starting to kick in

Power - Not his best performance

Leigh - One good switch, spent the rest of the game playing CB, losing the ball or getting run past by the Burton midfield

Pointon - probably the man of the match, but was effectively marked out of the game

Kav - All over the place. He is not a second striker and never will be

Humphries - don't think I need to say much. I still have faith in him to come good, there is a player in there…..somewhere

 

It's only a yellow card when the player makes an attempt to play the ball, the only way these days to get a red card in that situation is being nowhere near the ball and making a blatant trip or pulling the attacker. Any challenge with the feet anywhere close to the ball will always be a yellow card.
Any team 2-0 up away from home is going to do what they did and slow the game down, it's all part of football. They were quite clever with it as they did a lot of minor bits that were probably just enough to avoid a yellow card especially their keeper who played every trick in the book perfectly. The time wasting was added on, I don't think there will be many games with only 4 subs in a half and no serious injury that ends up in 7 minutes added on.

 

Maybe. But we had to lose at some point at home.

But...

It's a repeat from last season losing to teams at the bottom of the table AGAIN

 

Today summed up Humphrys perfectly, there was quite a few moments of great play especially running with the ball but in between that there is a lot of basic errors and being careless with the ball or being too slow on the press. I do want to see him and Cook as a front 2 as I think playing with Cook will help him by taking the pressure off him with less dirty work to do and more freedom to go wide.

 

It beats me why they don't have a timer to get the ball back in play.

 

I don't understand why defenders think they are Bobby Moore trying to keep a ball in play when it needed putting into touch because that's what happened with their second which I thought once their lad kept it in play it was a well worked goal, I thought Alexander would have seen how Burton set up (surely he went to the Rotherham game Tuesday night) and saw the kid Webster run the show for Burton then he thinks our two midfield players could out gun their three, they were very happy to let Rotherham have the ball stats very similar to todays game and catch them and us on the counter, their three looked full of energy where our two looked pretty lethargic, Tuesday nights game is meaningless so lets make the best of this extended break and get back to winning ways.

 

How many times did we have 2 balls on the pitch today which slowed down us taking quick throw ins.
Whoever in the crowd just blindly throwing the ball back into the pitch are thick as mince.

 

The problem will be when you start it. It would have to have different guidelines that would end up being very subjective. Even with the multi ball there will be times when a player is a good 15+ yards from the ball so there is a natural time that will be taken to get the ball and get into position for the restart. In non-league where they only have 1 ball and often balls go outside the stadium or at least into the stands where there are very few fans so it will naturally take longer so a standard clock would be unfair on them.
It's an idea that sounds good in theory but I'm just not sure how you make it a practical and straightforward law in reality like they have been able to do with the 8 seconds for the keeper as there's very little subjectivity in it and it's easy to apply at all levels.