The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Grimsby Town Saturday 9th September 12:30pm - sky sports

Some of the Halliday bashing is unfair. There were far worse performances today. Jamie Walker is an attacking midfielder and his floated corner deliveries were as worse as anything Halliday put in.

Halliday is solid and linked with Pointon well. Get off his back.

 

If Derbyshire can't play at least 75 minutes the odd time a season when required then what the bloody hell is he doing at a professional football club?

 

People who slate Halliday know nothing about football.

 

Whilst yesterdays first half was one of the worst we’ve seen under Hughes my biggest gripe was what he said in the first part of his post match interview.

“We’ve talked all week about getting on the front foot”
“Implementing the high press”

This is just complete nonsense and are just phrases he’s seen other managers use.

I can’t remember a single game while Hughes has been in charge where we’ve started on the front foot from the kick off.
A team containing 3 centre halves and Smallwood,McDonald,Walker and Derbyshire in front of them will never be able to pull this off.
Where did he think the “front foot” was going to come from?
Derbyshire?I said yesterday he got a contract because Hughes is his mate from their Blackburn time together.
Nothing in yesterday’s 66 minutes on the pitch can convince me that’s not the case.
Walker?
I like him and have defended him in the past but yesterday apart from one run that ended in a shot into Tesco car park he was completely invisible and apart from the goal against Crewe is one of the most disappointing aspects of the start to our season.
Smallwood and McDonald?
Both are the epitome of “safe” footballers and while both are ok at what they do,neither have ever been “front foot” footballers.

It was abundantly clear after 15/20 minutes when we hadn’t even got the ball in their box once that it wasn’t going to happen.
Be brave.
Admit your original plan (that apparently you’ve been practicing all week??) isn’t working.
Change it.
Get the only fit experienced midfielder who moves forward (Gilly) on the pitch and try and up the tempo a bit.
But no.We’ll wait until the inevitable happens and they score just before HT.
The sedate,leisurely,safety first football we saw in the first half yesterday is such a hard watch and resulted in absolutely no threat on their goal.

Hughes is then lauded for doing what 17,000 fans could see was the only option and surprise surprise with a bit more tempo we push Grimsby back and start to create a few chances.

For Hughes to suggest we were going to be adventurous and forward thinking from the off is nonsense at best and quite frankly insulting.

“Front foot”
He wouldn’t know it if it kicked him up the arse.

 

The late equaliser changes nothing for me. Zero confidence in Hughes and every game under him is time wasted.

Well done Bobby Pointon though. Looks a real player.

 

Things I don't want to see again this season -
3 CBs
Derbyshire in a city shirt
Smallwood as captain

Things I fully expect to see when we play Harrogate next week-
3CBs
Derbyshire in a city shirt
Smallwood as captain

 

I wouldn't lose any sleep of we gave Hughes the boot on Monday. That first half was absolutely clueless and made players look far worse than they are. Yes we played better second half but that first 45 is simply unforgivable after seeing it twice already at VP this season.

 

I can certainly see where you're coming from, at times last season it felt like I had to attend out of loyalty, for me good or bad if Bradford City are playing I have to be involved be that attending the game, listening on the radio or trying to keep up with the goings on with the William Hills, BBC web sites, or Simon Parker blog is as live as it gets, plus I have the grandson chirping away, hope you get your appetite back for watching our club and it isn't because Mark Hughes has been shown the door, that would suggest another failed season.

 

I'm desperately trying not to bite but I can't. A point at home against a pretty limited league 2 football side should never be seen as an 'excellent point'. It was as.clear as day two points dropped, you can wheel out any excuse you want, that game was there for the taking of we had a manager who knew how to set up a team properly.

 

I personally don't dislike Hughes or playing out from the back...

... but I'm still disappointed that we aren't monsters from set pieces.

Even with 3 centre backs, we don't seem like any sort of danger from corners.

 

That's fair enough Dave. The idea of another manager change doesn't thrill me, and if I had confidence it'd come good, I'd be ok with plugging away. I just have very, very little confidence in Hughes. I have little confidence in the football operation at the club either. For a club our size to continually make such ham fisted attempts to get out of this league is hugely depressing. We're cloaked in low ambition and incompetence.

 

What about young Pointon? He should surely get a start?

 

He should but he won’t, Hughes said in the press conference that we mustn’t put too much pressure on him and introduce him gradually. Meanwhile other teams 18 year olds run us ragged.

 

Pointon and Gilly saved Hughes arse today. A few more minutes without Gilly's great strike and he'd have been booed off the field.
Positives of Pointon and the two new lads who came on, Afoka looked a handful in the time he was on
Negatives of a clueless fooking manager who insists on starting with this 3 centre back rubbish.

 

I’m not for sacking managers at the rate we have in the past but after that post match interview I genuinely think Hughes has lost the plot and is just making it up as he goes along.
He talks of wanting to get on the front foot yet plays 2 defensive midfielders.
Smallwood only played one forward pass in the first half that their keeper easily beat Richards to.
McDonald offered absolutely nothing going forward and like Smallwood is never looking to move the ball forward.
Derbyshire put in what was arguably the most ineffective performance by a striker I’ve seen for a while and was just made to look like what he is.
A 37 year old has-been who got lucky with a contract from a mate who managed him 15 years ago.
Walker isn’t mobile enough to harry their CH’s
Their back line didn’t really need a drink midway through the first half as none of them broke sweat.
Pointon and Halliday were the only 2 who came out of todays 90 minutes with any credit.
Richards tried his best but constantly had no out ball due to the none movement from what was in front of him.

And then Radio Leeds making out Hughes is some sort of tactical genius by changing a formation that produced the sort of football you’ll be able to see all over the parks of Bradford tomorrow morning.

I voted stick in the MH poll.
After his post match interview I’m not so sure.

 

That first half was as bad as anything I've seen at VP for years. Just unbelievably passive, without a clue how to keep the ball, get forward or create chances. We could have played until doomsday in that formation, with those players, and never scored.
A half decent opposition would have been 3-0 up at HT.
As Morais said, we simply don't have the players to play 352 as an attacking formation. Most of that first half we actually played 541 - at home! Against an average, at best, L2 side! And, as Morais also said, we made them look like Barcelona.

Let's hope that's the last we've seen of a back three.

And whoever decided in the summer that we didn't need another established, competent striker needs their brains testing.

 

It was dire mate. The first half was as bad as it gets this season. 5 at the back etc.

Gillead has probably done enough to start next week as Macdonald looked slow, clunky, and a complete crab.

changing to four at the back helped but it took us to go a goal behind for the stubborn dinosaur to change it.

One shot on goal all game at home to an average Grimsby side. One. The bloke is an embarrassment - Jake Young is writing Hughes’ resignation letter for him week by week.

derbyshire played like an aging corpse. Offered nothing. The young loanees would have surely been more mobile, as they showed in their cameos.

if we had gone 0-2 down today the crowd would have handed him it. Instead, Gillead saves his a**s and we have ‘Mark Hughes’ Bradford army’ chants ringing out of the stands that paper over the cracks and buy him more time - Sparks prob thinks our fans went home happy - just as Darren Moore in the studio did.

Hughes out!

we could do with losing a few in a row to get him out ASAP when the fans turn.

 

Pointon was excellent second half. Halliday and Richards looked solid. The two late subs also impressed.

How come we have so many unfit/injured players so quickly?

Walker need dropping for a few months-has been wank in all honesty. Seems to have lost his mojo. Injured?

Derbyshire-deary deary me.

So I would like to see the team that ended the game today starting V Harrogate.

Going to stop listening to Hughes post match comments cos he just talks the same BS week in week out. Apparently the heat took the edge of our game!! No it was your fecking set up from the start you numbskull. Second half there was only one team in it. The crowd woke up and the Grimsby defence looked visibly rattled for a spell. That's what we want to see players trying to attack not fannying around in a formation the players clearly don't want to play in.

Starting to get really bored of 5 at the back at home to try and not get beat.