The Voice - Match preview #42: Swindon Town vs Bradford City Saturday 12th April 2025 12:30pm

That’s possible.

 

As I said early on ….It was a nuts game . They don’t happen often .

 

I’ve refrained from posting as after such a gut wrenching defeat you end up just posting on emotion and you melt down as we’re seeing on here, but for a red card we’d have romped home and be top and almost home and dry. Regarding Smallwood, I have to agree with Park on this you can’t stifle his game and just have to accept that he’ll get the odd red. Dust ourselves off and go again on Thursday, win our home games with how poor Walsall and Wimbledon have been and we are up imo. Yes no title, but would that matter when we’re playing Huddersfield and Bolton instead of Harrogate and Salford? Absolutely not.

 

Painful result to take but trying to look at the positives, Sarcevic back is a huge bonus for the team plus Kavanagh seems to have hit a purple patch of form in recent weeks. If he can maintain this form for the next few weeks then that might be enough to get us over the line.

Sadly I can’t see us winning the league, but still reckon we’ll finish in the top 3. Which all of us would have taken at the start of the season and even as recently as January.

 

Playoffs here we come I think.

 

Alexander sounds better in the later interview on the City website.

 

If that happens it’ll be league 2 again allez allez.
Absolutely no chance we will win the playoffs.

 

Not sure you could look at any team in that 4th to 7th bracket and say they'd win the POs.

 

Yes, in our moments of despair let's try and be positive. Smallwood has had his best season with us. The pressure in all our players - and Alexander - must be becoming severe, probably hence tackles like the one resulting in a red. Alexander's choice of subs could have been a master stroke. It was probably the wrong one. Maybe he should have been braver. He must have known had he done so and it went all wrong these pages would have been full of recriminations. He might now be bolder in these last 4 games.

Me and my family were there in 1985. We did not see the trophy presented. We want to see it this year. It's Champions or nothing for us. BE BOLD!

 

Absolute pantomime of a game to watch but they happen now and again.
We are still in the top three with plenty of twists and turns ahead.
Putting the natural emotions of defeat yesterday to one side I can see a favourable reaction on Thursday night, these players aren't a set of bottlers unlike some of the previous squads assembled.
Anyone who can remember the heavy defeat and performance at Blackpool some years ago under Simon Grayson will understand my point.
I remain positive did you honestly believe we were going to be where we are after that performance away at Notts County I didn't that's football, don't think I would like to be a Saddler right now that's a prime example of how quickly things can spiral out of control.
Keep the faith what will be will be it's far from over.

 

I’m over it now, just one of those calamity games, for both sides oddly. Also in our favour , the results largely also went our way too.

 

I didn't post about the game yesterday for the same reason. Having slept on it, the emotions have gone and I'm left feeling numb. I've just got that horrible feeling that I've been suckered into believing that finally, finally, this is the year we actually manage to get out of this league but like last year and the year before, we are going to end up falling short yet again.
I'm one of the few who don't believe Walsall are done for and can see them picking up at least 4 points from their next 2 games whereas I see us struggling to pick up anything from our next 2. Hope I'm very wrong and over catastrophizing but right now, I see us in league 2 again next season.

 

I did post yesterday but I have calmed down. We need to take the positives from yesterday. If the sending off hadn’t happened we would have taken them to the cleaners. We still managed to score two more goals despite being down a man.

No poster actually thought we would win all five games surely? So we need to remain positive that we can finish in the top three. All the teams apart from PV appear to be suffering from nerves. It is in our own hands and our players have recovered from injury. Look forward to Thursday.

 

I have similar fears I'm afraid. A defeat like that and the manner of it could be really difficult to come back from. Like you, I fear Walsall can't keep on losing and are due to scramble a win from somewhere, whereas we are now left looking very vulnerable with no obvious replacement for our captain.
I said before the Crewe game, that I couldn't see us winning all 3 home games, and that to go up we would need to grab at least 1 win away. I still believe that, so we really have almost no margin for error now.

 

Morning bantams.
You were cruising yesterday we couldn't deal with your balls into the box. The sending off was the turning point, it was high and deliberate he knew what he was doing
Why you went defensive is beyond me, but thanks
As for the shenanigans between number 24 and our strikers, he was being a clown all second half trying to wind Smith up off the ball to provoke him. Trying to get a reaction to even the numbers up. He clearly wanted Smith's shirt as he was pulling him all over the place throughout the 2nd half.
The yellows were for the relentless time wasting, it was not game management it was blatant and you took it a step too far. It was as if you didn't know what to do, your keeper held the ball for so long yet he didn't get penalised.
I spoke to a few of your fans yesterday walking back to the car, decent fellas.
I hope you go up, this league is fecking horrendous hopefully Ollie can get us out of it next season.
Oh and if you have a striker sat around not scoring for you we will take him on loan again. ;-)

 

Who was the team that come to us a week or more ago, saying they had sickness in the camp? At the time I was worried they would pass it on.

 

Agree with you there, why we went defensive only alexander knows.. we had 7 defenders on and conceded 5.. none knew what to do,

This Ameen guy looks a damn good prospect for the future.. he tore us apart.. i can see championship teams coming in for him, he was MoM in my opinion.

 

Reflecting on yesterday 24hrs after the event I must comment on how well the 10 men coped after being hamstrung by the sending off and some very poor substitutions and negative game management
Smallwood was an idiot the clearest red card you will see all season a seasoned pro playing the sort of game he does is bound to pick up a red or two but given the importance of the game he really should have known better he will have plenty of time to reflect on his actions
GA is as much to question as Smallwood what incredibly negative substitutions 7 defenders on the pitch is pub standard tactics Swindons defence was weak to say the least and even with 10 men playing they way we were would undoubtedly have scored more but to even consider inviting the opposition on for 45 mins plus was sheer madness
Our defenders had absolutely no out ball hence every clearance was sent back with interest every chance we would concede playing that way The 2 substitutions after Swindon got the winner were ludicrous should have been made when we went 4-3 waste time and have personnel in the opposition half to hold the ball there all pretty basic stuff let's hope "Mr Tinkerman" has learned some harsh lessons
Could have been worse teams around us dropping points but also could have been a lot better
Still think courtesy of Walsall and Doncaster dropping points we will finish top 3 after all this is Bradford City when do we ever do things the easy way