The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Crewe Alexandra Saturday 27 August @ 3:00pm

A good ref is one you don’t notice which in my opinion was the case yesterday until he ruined it yes for the biased but an unforgivable error all the same

 

Gurnham Singh was a great ref, whose only fault was the 8 minutes injury time he added at Ipswich away.

 

Hello WUM.

 

Some fans.

 

It’s funny that in the top flight most of the refs are accused of giving the “big” teams all the decisions due to crowd pressure.
Yet at our level a lot of refs are accused of being determined to show that they won’t give all the decisions to the “big” teams.
So all top flight refs are weak and easily influenced and all refs at our level are very strong and won’t be influenced by a big crowd.

I just think its simply down to the fact there are good refs and shit refs.

 

More than will admit but yes not all.

 

There won't be a single forum in the country that says the refs favour them. Not one. They will all feel that refs don't give them what they should.

 

Of course that’s true but every single football fan will watch matches on tv and live as neutrals and see errors some costing the victim team dearly. Refereeing is a difficult job unfortunately us in the lower leagues have to suffer inexperienced officials trying to make their way some never will nor should they

 

I think fans massively underestimate how difficult it is to make a decision in real time with bodies in the way from a sh*t angle and with players from both sides constantly in your face. I'd go as far to say that in the stands we often have a better view. If you've ever sat on row A you'll know what I mean. Take the one on Oliver yesterday. You didn't see it through the refs eyes. He could've had bodies in the way. Even if he had a view of it, he's looking at the front of Oliver. He can't even see what the defender behind him is doing. He can only see Oliver falling backwards. If he's giving a pen, he's guessing. Don't get me wrong, I was screaming for a pen but I can see why he wasn't convinced. The handball was bang on 50/50.

 

I agree and even watching the Colchester and yesterday incidents I still think they could have gone either way. Shame they didn’t go ours, 5 extra points would have been nice. The key is to win it off your own back, because if you rely on refs decisions you can be relying on luck.

 

Referees don't make it easy on themselves at times, yesterday being a perfect example it must have happened 7/8 times yesterday where the linesman was a couple of yards away from an incident the ball goes out of play yet he awaits the referees decision to which way the throw goes then flags in the same direction, I thought they were there to assist the referee, yet a couple of times the first half the linesman on the main stand side flagged twice for fouls.

 

Smallwood had probably his worst game for us yesterday. I cannot recall one cross of his going anywhere near our players. Yes he does pass the ball a lot but its usually backwards to a CB or FB and then moves into space to retrieve the pass and it starts again. He needs to be looking forward with the pass much more often that he does in my opinion. He was brought in to be our midfield maestro but so far has flattered to deceive. He needs to up his game somewhat and expect the same from his teammates.

 

Harsh, we are missing Walker in there remember....

 

He passed a beauty down field to Young who only had the defender to beat but failed. I agree about his crosses though.

 

I’d rather have that ref yesterday than Bobby Madden every day of the week.

 

No WUM just as always telling it how it really is.

 

That’s a real scientific comparator.

 

Our main issue is our full backs. They aren’t good enough. They aren’t comfortable with the ball with their weaker foot and they are to slow to keep up with the attacking play. The Crewe fullbacks looked composed an progressed the ball well whenever they had possesion.

This is the issue you see with playing a system which is somewhat dependant upon them to push forward an create chances. They don’t do it. Ridehalgh’s crossing is decent, but when you’ve got Angol in front of you, it’s a bit hard to overlap a player who isn’t exactly taking anyone on in the first place. As for Halliday, he has no excuses. Banks constantly cuts in on the left, all Haliday needs to do is overlap an create pressure on that side of the pitch, he doesn’t do it

 

That was a great ball, however he overhit so many yesterday.