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

Well for one thing these players are used to having a captain on the pitch and it through them off balance. Should it have done? No but it did. Next was the exhaustion of playing at top tempo with only ten men. I read some years ago research that strongly suggested that exhaustion interferes with your decision making. Your thinking becomes slower and it takes longer to come to a decision. I think that played a major part at the end of the match.

We now need some serious thinking from the management team about who should be captain. Then who we are going to put in the middle. I am also in favour of playing our best players first, if they tire then we can switch but by that time we are already in charge of the game.

 

Does beg the question why we haven't done it before though. I didn't even know Brad had that in him until Saturday!

 

Interesting that every one of those opponents had at least 1 red card during the game

 

It's been that long since I saw Smallwood not on the field, I honestly couldn't even remember who our vice-captain is. Need to get used to it and then try a completely new midfield to find 6/7 or so points that should give us a top 3 slot. Never the easy way is it?!

 

A couple of days to digest the situation and reflect on the game as a whole and although at the time I said no one to blame but Richie the more I think about the subs I ask myself (not knowing who may have been carrying the bug) why did he lose faith in a defence that was second best in the league.
Even if Pointon and Pattison were feeling they couldn't continue, two of our more creative players were withdrawn, we still had Sarcevic, Walker and Wright on the bench, hindsight I know but I'd like to know Alexander thoughts behind the changes, we saw Swindon were suspect at the back when you concede two goals from long throw ins, doing what he did we completely lost our shape not having an out ball but worst we did not pressure their crosses.
So infuriating all round but as has been said not time to look back we regroup and put Notts County to the sword a Thursday night.

 

On top of losing Smallwood the loss of Baldwin showed his value to the teen. I think what happened in the game overshadowed a brilliant hat trick for Kavanagh something he hasn’t been given much credit for.

 

Got to agree with park there about Kavanagh. It will be a long time before he scores a hat-trick and finishes on the owing side again. I hope it helped him with his confidence though and he can move it forward to the next games.

 

I wonder when was the last time that a fourth tier player scored a first half hat trick and ended up on the losing side? Can’t have happened often.

 

True. They are the absolute opposite of a long ball side. Tricky winers, good attacking ball players looking to get in behind.

 

The own goal was also a deep cross from the left , so yes.

 

Look at two of the goals in the OVERTIME? That’s my reference point to the poster who says they score frequently in overtime. So no I am correct. IN OVERTIME . Dont please miss the point. why and how they scored two in OT NOT the first 90!

 

Told you didn’t I ! The pattern is there to see!

 

Troy Deeney in 2023 scored a hat-trick for FGR in a 4-3 loss to Notts County. That to me looks like the only other instance since it become "League Two" about 20 years ago. A fair amount of occasions where a hat trick has been scored and the games a draw. But just Kavanagh and Deeney in the hat-trick and lose boat.

 

Since Holloway joined in late 2024 they have had SEVEN opponents sent off ( If I read it right) , you are more accurate than you ever imagined.

 

Sorry Kev. I missed the bit where you mentioned 'overtime'. You're right, their goals came from long balls 'lumped' into the box and definitely not from quality deliveries from out wide.

 

Some genius work from Holloway getting all these opponents sent off. Having looked at the last 5 red cards their opponents have had 2 of them were for stopping a goal bound shot with their arm, one was for a blatant dive and another one was for a shirt pull in the box. How Holloway has got his side to make their opponents do these things is next level. Maybe it's some kind of hypnotism? It's mighty effective though.

 

Woooooo spoookey.

 

Yellow or red?

 

Kavanagh can have a great career if he continues to find the net regularly