The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Crawley Town Saturday 29th October @ 3:00pm

Our decision making and speed of it when in possession is absolutely appalling. We see a pass, delay making it, only for the opposition to squeeze up and then when we try to make the original pass, the player is marked so end up going backwards. It happens time and time again and I've got no idea why they hesitate making easy forward passes.

The mistake from Gilliead for the goal was what you'd expect from a young lad eager to impress on his debut rather than an experienced player. He's facing his own goal with a man up his backside yet decides to pass backwards without looking instead of just hooking the ball down the channel.

And whilst it was not a good performance, we still created more than enough to win, but as usual our poor finishing has cost us again. Chapman and Halliday excellent.

 

anyone notice how all of Crawley’s chances came from our mistakes?

 

Smallwood and Gilliead have been dreadful in CM today. Can’t believe East hasn’t come on.

Chapman has been excellent.

 

He made a mistake. It proved costly. East was possibly a better option yesterday. But to say he is a moron? Disagree. I remember Gary Jones setting up Port vale years ago with a terrible back pass they scored from in a game we lost. He wasn’t a moron. Neither is Gilleard.

 

Bang on the money and the reason we did not win today. If Hughes is gonna insist on playing the ball out from the back he's gonna need to add a midfielder who is happy recieving the ball with his back to goal and happy to turn with it. Chapman the only one to be able to do it but we need a player who can do that recieving the ball from Platt and Critchlow. Otherwise we end up with our full backs getting the ball from them with the only option of passing it straight back because our central midfield doesn't offer itself as an option.

 

Bollocks. Adams was an arrogant one dimensional deluded p*ick. No pattern of play.

Hughes team has a plan albeit we aren’t executing it very well at present. East in midfield makes us tick better football wise. Perreira is an impact sub. Banks offers more threat but has been crocked.

But go ahead and you throw in the towel….

 

He is but he was awful today. Him and Gilliead are too alike.

 

I think our 1 up top approach suits playing away from home, as generaly the home team have to try please the home supporters and attack the visiting team thus playing into the hands of a 1 up top visiting team, but when playing at home as it's proved it becomes a frustrating formation and generally plays into the opponents hands if the early goal doesn't arrive. I'd personally start every home game with 2 up top and take the the game to the opposition from the off, with the 5 subs rule you have plenty of room to manoeuvre to alter if it's not working.

 

Lets be honest, a decent side would have would have taken more advantage of our generosity. First half we gave them chance after chance, just off the back of an opposition simply pressing upfield. And yet for all our failings yesterday we created enough chances to win, Cook, Wright and Smallwood missing what were pretty easy chances. Hughes is right in wanting to stick with his strategy, he just needs to sort out that central midfield so it allows us to play at a higher tempo. All our attacking midfielders like to run at players at the tempo we play yet they're getting to much ball with back to goal.
Theres a lot to like about this team in the periods when we do play well. We just don't do it enough yet.

 

Like i've posted before there is no chance he will slag off his side in public, especially if questions are being asked of performances, and rightly so.
We were up in arms last season when deluded Derek was throwing the side under the bus and look where his managerial skills got us.
Hughes is right to put an arm around what is a young team.

 

Wasn’t a bad game second half but we are our own worst enemy, that was worse than Sunday league from Gilliead. We need another decent quality CM.

 

Well,we’ve moaned when teams have come to VP and put ten men behind the ball,used the dark arts and time wasted from minute one.
Can’t accuse Crawley of any of that.2 up top from the start,no real time wasting.In fact their keeper took quite a few quick free kicks and dead balls to put us under pressure.And no sign of moaning at the ref at every opportunity.

And we cant blame the ref today either.
Thought he got everything right and didn’t really notice him.

 

Why oh why don't we leave Wright upfield when defending a corner.
Surely with his pace he would occupy 2 maybe 3 defenders.
I turned radio L666ds off after hearing Hughes opening line of
" I thought we did well today ".
Unbelievable Jeff

 

With both Pierera and Cook it’s like playing with 9 men. Add the poor performance from Smallwood and Gilliead and you can see why we struggled today. Platt needs about 10 minutes to decide he’s going to pass it square or back to the keeper. If we carry on like this attendances will soon start to fall off. When at home it’s on us to attack and get the fans going. We don’t seem to have a purpose to any of our play. We neither attack down the flanks or play through the thirds, with the exception of Chapman nobody drove at the opposition. It’s not taking long for the frustration to rise amongst the fans with the slow purposeless passing.

We ain’t Barcelona we’re Bradford City. Get at the opposition and the crowd will back you. Tippy tap at your peril Mr Hughes.

 

Going back to City we’ve won just 3 games at home out of 9 with this 1 up front formation. One of those was a fluke against Walsall, we have to change the system at home as it’s no different to Adams last season but Hughes gets a free ride because he’s a nice bloke.

 

Well your cure didn’t work! I was upset last night, not because we only drew but the manner that happened. It was MH post match assessment, it felt like we had been transported back to last season with Adams when you wondered whether we had watched the same game.

 

That’s a good point and there’s an argument to say league 1 or Championship players would fair far better, but like McCall who did better in league 1 than 2 with us. But we are 6th with a game in hand on 3rd and put for a debatable penalty and a shocking back pass we could be 4 points better off and nobody would be batting an eye lid.

It’s fine margins imo, tweaks to finesse us yes definitely, but reinvent the wheel as some want no that’s well ott.

 

You absolute dick Gilliead

 

For the first time today, the crowd got frustrated and via a mixture of angst, derision and groans, I felt the booing at times from some, was uncalled for.

 

Let's put a bit of perspective on it. We are on track for 82 points, more if we get consistency, we've lost three in 16, won half out games and not concedes a league goal from open play in the last four matches.

On the negative side, we fart around at the back far too much, play too much sideways football and rely too much on Andy Cook.

We can't do much about Orient and Fatboy FC running away with it, but Northampton are there to be taken

Hughes says he won't change, but he's hardly going to broadcast his thoughts on Radio Leeds.

Let's see what the next seven matches bring and make a proper judgement at the halfway point.