The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Crewe Alexandra Saturday 27 August @ 3:00pm

Watching match of the day last night and when crosses came into the box there are four or five waiting for them. With us there is one in the case of a fantastic cross from Oliver Zero. We play “good football” in our own half and we are totally ineffective in our opponent’s

 

I’ll say again that we’d piss this league playing 442 week in week out.
This tippy tappy 16 passes accross the back 4 and then a long cross field pass out of play is not the answer in league 2

 

Oliver thrives off crosses. Our deliveries into the box from open play and set pieces are appalling irrespective of formation.

 

Banks hit an identical shot against hartlepool which put us on our way to victory, yesterday the keepers pulled off a blinder as its going in the same corner as the Hartlepool game. Fine margins, if that goes in we win that game easily. We hardly look like conceding, the central midfield is generally solid. Banks is looking a threat, Cook is on form. There ain't that much wrong. Just an imbalance on left flank. Get that sorted and we good to go.

 

No way was Smallwood best player on the pitch yesterday. Quite frankly he was no better than Halliday who you have lambasted in the same post.

My man of the match was Platt, he never put a foot wrong all afternoon

 

I love me some blood and thunder too, nothing against it, but I just don't think we're in for that.

I'm comforted by the fact we've hit the bar in both 0 0s at home and if those go in, were storming it.

I've no concerns at all. Wish our crossing was better, but we'll do well imho

 

Chapman was carrying an injury and nearly didn't start

 

It wasn’t very good, I won’t single players out as it was one of those performances where nothing clicked. Lack of movement when we had the ball, slow passing and terrible crossing around.

First half wasn’t too bad, not entertaining but we out played them and Banks had a few good efforts, when we’ve been down on our luck I’ve seen teams score very similar.

Second half the changes didn’t work, but I respect the effort to change things.

I’ve cooled off since earlier, looking for positives we’ve still yet to concede at home in the league and don’t look like doing. Obviously negatives as well, we need to play the ball in the final third much quicker.

The boos at full time were ott imo.

Onto next week, need 3 points.

 

Flat performance, but the booing is just moronic and cannot get my head around, unless the booing was aimed at the ref for those penalty decisions in injury time?

 

I just don't get the Halliday bashing from some to be honest

 

This is what I mean.

In past seasons we've had glaring issues - major issues - but they're simply not present this season.

I know it's hard to adapt to, but we look like a monstrous task for the opposition at VP right now. Nobody wins all their games, and Crewe and Donny are probably two of the better teams in the division this season - yet we were better than them.

It's not a question of whether we can make improvements - we can, and we will.

But if the question is are we in trouble? Hell no. I just don't know what people are thinking at the minute. I almost wish we could fast forward to next Saturday, but only in football terms lol.

 

In short, I don't think we're that far off having a side that can go on a good run of wins.

Walker has been a big (and unexpected) miss.

There's a long way to go in the season. I'm optimistic we'll continue to improve performances and results. Hughes has shown he's quick to make changes when he's not happy. I'm optimistic we'll have a good season.

 

I don’t think defensively we have many problems it’s our link up play that is costing us our play is far to deep we make it easy for packed defences to organise

 

Absolutely Rod, it’s goes without saying set piece play is basic weapon in any teams armoury. Likewise in open play even Ridehalgh, who can whip a ball in, is lying and thus crossing from far too deep. This is resulting in the angle being all wrong for his type of cross. This is created solely by our left side weakness in the “3”. Who would have imagined that within the first two games of the season we would lose two key players from the intended “3” .? It’s ok having cover all round the field, but Chapman covering Walker, and Angol /Young covering Osadebe …..?
As it’s proving, crosses from both open play on the left and set pieces from anywhere are creating an inbuilt shortcoming.

 

Didn’t a fair few say Pete Wild wasn’t good enough to manage in this league?

 

Damn that was poor!

We could still be playing until Tuesday and we wouldn’t have scored.

 

Fully disagree.

Our crossing is extremely poor.
We have no creativity in the centre of the park.

 

The lack of quality in the final third was alarming today. The only bright spark was Banks.

Defence looks very settled and hardly been tested in the home league games.

I thought we missed the drive of Gillead today, East is tidy enough, but too similar to Smallwood to play together.

I hope we can pluck a pacy winger from somewhere next week.

 

Agree on this. Ridehalgh and Smallwood’s deliveries were particularly poor.

I felt there was some decent enough performances. Banks particularly. Crichlow, though he was barely troubled, is quality - his distribution is class. Young had a decent second half - most of our limited threat came from him.

Thought Oliver’s cameo was decent enough.

Crewe are another team in a list that have done a number on us at home and we couldn’t find a solution. I really hope the Pereira scenarios changes and we can welcome him back as for me he’s exactly what we are missing in these games and think we could see more from Oliver with him and Banks either side of him.