The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Barrow Saturday 18th February @ 3:00pm

Spot on.

 

Too true.

Actually, I came on here and called Halliday a '****ing disgrace', but I meant his performance, not him as a guy. I generally think he plays pretty well, but he was ultra negative on Saturday.

That said, I agree totally. Adams actually had the same thing. I distinctly recall how pragmatic and straight forward people thought he was at first, then grew to hate him because he wasn't exactly Mr Charisma and seemed moody at times.

I'm not a massive fan of Adams' character, but I didn't pretend to like him when I thought he'd deliver promotion, then turn on him the second he failed.

Same with Hughes, except I actually admire Hughes, and like the cut of his gib.

Two defeats in nine, which happened to be against crap sides (although Barrow aren't crap in terms of picking up points, are they?), and suddenly Hughes talks rubbish, shouldn't be listened to, is boring, dour, and talks arse.

The only difference I'm seeing between this season and the glorious Parky season is cup runs.

Cup runs distracted everybody (possibly even the team), and those massive wins overawed everything else.

Hughes hasn't managed a cup run, but the league situation is very similar indeed, but he's a loser.

You couldn't make this up - but you could easily predict it.

 

There’s nothing wrong with calling out crap performances and even using adult language as long as it isn’t an attack on someone as a person, that said all but Walker were awful imo and the full backs are constantly sold short in this formation but that’s a different discussion.

I have to say I’ve been considering my future at VP recently, I have before but I’ve always come around and it’s usually been regarding the ownership etc. This time it’s how toxic and uncomfortable I now find the place, I’ve been going since 95’ so have seen more bad than good, I can deal with that. But gone have the sarcastic but quick witted comments, now it’s vulgar, to the point the guy behind me actually screamed at Smallwood on Saturday. I won’t say what he said when the sub was announced. Tbh I’m just bored of it all, football can be frustrating but a bigger and bigger percentage of our fanbase have turned into instant gratification zombies. Even in a game the can change from Mark Hughes Bradford army to wanting him out. Barrow fans were fantastic from whistle one, could you imagine our fans on such a streak?!

 

I have to admit, I'm a bit the same.

I don't feel like I understand City fans at the moment - but when I speak to people at the game with any kind of regularity, everyone seems to be totally different to the booing, jeering, intolerant fans that boo every single goal conceded and want to lambast Hughes every time the players clearly don't perform.

I walked away from Saturday wanting to push it to the back of mind ASAP, and at half time said to the daughter "they're getting booed here" without actually booing myself.

I still came on and posted a few times in frustration, but there's a difference between being very annoyed about a performance and being very annoyed at the steering of the ship as a whole.

Losing to Rochdale didn't mean we weren't on promotion form, and losing to Barrow doesn't mean we're suddenly worthless tripe. It just means we're irritatingly inconsistent, and as likely to lose 1-0 at home as we are easily outplay Tranmere en route to a 2-0 win.

Yeah, it's annoying.

Be annoyed, but leave it there.

It's nothing like the chronic mismanagement under Rupp and Rahic, which would have sent us to non-league if it had continued.

 

Reading opposition social media, we've gained quite a bit of notoriety for the lack of backing from our home support. Some of it is justified, the football at VP over the last five years could turn anyone off football for life, but there's almost a defeatist attitude before we've even kicked off despite unprecedented crowd sizes. But then this crowd here will back you all the way as a manager if your team goes out there and gives it all which this season it clearly hasn't. I'm not for booing the side and I'd like to see the side backed better by the fans but the manager and players have to play their part as well.

 

I fully agree with @WilsdenBantam and @JonButterfield, the result on Saturday needed a day from the manager to understand that he should be able to account for teams like Barrow who come and set themselves up to frustrate the crowd. We don’t need the reactionary comments on social media slating the players, they should be backing them, not booing. I only wish MH learns from this but having said that any manager worth his salt should be able to anticipate this.

 

Only Cook ?, he had two chances during the whole game both in the first half both balls played to his chest, the first he tried to control but could not get it down to get his shot away as he was closed down, as it turned out the lino had flagged him off side, the second a similar poor ball to his chest which again he control as it dropped he tried to play it back to Esia but he was on the deck as Canavan had blocked his run maybe a pen on another day.
Why you only single out Cook from what was a terrible TEAM PERFORMANCE is beyond me, he did have a good game against Stevenage scoring one and making two assist but he didn't have three 6ft plus central defenders to deal with.

He have a watch

 

Yet in the past we have seen opposing players taking snaps of the stadium on their phones that suggests they are impressed with the surrounding, I'm sure the pre match talk from the opposition manager would be something like "you've seen the stadium and their squad, the crowd will be 16/17,000 lets go out there and show them their in for a game", I believe Stubbs quote would be with regards something like that, and I forgot keep it to 0 - 0 until 30 minutes and the home crowd get on the players backs and they are frightened to do what comes naturally.

 

Not sure thats completely true, it's more like they are playing to 'orders' .......

 

Sorry mate your wrong it did happen twice with regards Cook making runs to receive the ball, the first from Clayton I believe and the second from Platt, the first he was offside and the second he brought the ball down off his chest and played it back to where Esia would have been unfortunately Canavan had put Esia on his arse with an off the ball challenge another day that quite easily could have resulted in a penalty.

 

To counter that why can’t our manager in his team talk say “this is our big stadium where we play every other week,we’ve got 16/17000 of our fans out there.Let’s get straight on the front foot and show these opposition players who are so busy taking photos of their surroundings that we mean business and the crowd will lift us?”

 

Fair comment, that was my interpretation mate, but they seem frightened of not following that ridged system even when everyone can see were struggling with it, let them of the leash Mark.

 

It’s ALL justified comment by other supporters RT. I said it out loud months ago. It’s like a morgue.

Watching and listening to home fans when City are away is chalk and cheese. Away from VP City go one or two up, and the home support tends to get louder! We all know what happens at our place!

It never happened years ago…… If only I could put my finger on it?

 

Could it be the result of a large squad and each place in team being open to a competitive challenge? Rather than MH being rigid in his instructions. It could be they are becoming frightened by trying different things not only will the crowd gets on their backs but they could lose their place in the team.

 

They way he spoke in this last interview prior to the game that was very much how he spoke about the game against Barrow, saying we had got ourself back into a position were we need to beat the likes of Barrow at home saying they are in a poor run of form and most of their total points had been gained at the start of the season, I'm sure he does used the crowd as an impetus to the players.

 

Tbf regarding the team giving it their all, I think they do but the style of play lends to slow build up which always looks a bit half arsed. If we played an Evans style of percentage balls and players chasing down lost causes I think it would look like the players were trying harder.

I remember Leeds V Bristol City at Elland Road around 5 years ago, Leeds were 2 down playing awful then at around the 70 minute mark the crowd were incredible as much as I don’t like to admit it. Needless to say the players got a second wind and they came back to draw, but missed chances to win by 5! There is a real disconnect between fans and the team at this club and it gets more uncomfortable to be there to witness by the game.

 

Just plucked up the courage to watch this and seen how bad our defence were conceeding the goal
We had 3 players chasing the ball leaving 2 Barrow forwards completely unmarked in the box
Shocking defending to be fair and some say Cook is the problem

 

Reading opposition social media, we've gained quite a bit of notoriety for the lack of backing from our home support. Some of it is justified, the football at VP over the last five years could turn anyone off football for life, but there's almost a defeatist attitude before we've even kicked off despite unprecedented crowd sizes. But then this crowd here will back you all the way as a manager if your team goes out there and gives it all which this season it clearly hasn't. I'm not for booing the side and I'd like to see the side backed better by the fans but the manager and players have to play their part as well.

The upper kop used to do it's best to raise the atmosphere and to be fair to the lads in the corner they did try on Saturday. I'm not expecting South American or Eastern European levels of fanaticism but it would be nice for once to see the fans in their feet actually trying to create some sort of hostility. Less than 6,000 here for the cup game with Hull and the lower kop was absolutely bouncing. Felt a bit like the old days of the single tier kop. Unfortunately very much a one off.

 

I posted similar after the game with regards the likes of Walker being allowed more freedom, not sure a big squad has much influance as we see week in week out Hughes keeps most of the same players in the starting 11 I think it's more with regards cover.

 

Unfortunatly the goal we conceded was a mistake by Clayton what's more ironic is if you watch the video clip again Smallwood does a similar thing in the same area and the very same player Kay nearly robs him of the ball.