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

Bit of bias there Kev, but I would drop Derbyshire to play Young .

 

But, will it happen ?
And if not, why not .. ?

 

I can only comment on what I see, the bookies don't interest me and as I pointed out those teams were not the easiest start to the season IMO, Crawley being the surprise package so far.

 

But both you and I know that wont be the case, 'llI repeat why did it take until half time to make the changes not necessarily the players but the system, not for the first time this season I may add.

 

This is what I feared from our current financial mantra “Sustainability” If we can’t find extra investment other teams who have been taken over by billionaires and or are willing to go into debt will bypass us on their way up and out of this division as we fall further back even if we can raise 15,000 ST and sponsorship.
Plus I will keep saying it, unless we adopt a more attacking mindset 442 or a hybrid then we can expect more stodge.

 

Wrong we are three points from 5 th place two wins would probably see us in a play off position.nobody except probably the top two are consistent. Much to early for panic

 

No , Dave I just don’t rate him as a player based on last season. Nothing more.
As a result, of course I’m biased.
I don’t get the obsession that some have with him all of a sudden, especially when he became a dead weight and frankly people didn’t give a jot about him beyond last October. . It happens, we move on. Some of the obsession is cringeworthy.

 

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.

 

We certainly don’t look like a team with any outstanding attributes that makes me think we are one of the better teams in the league.
The old cliche of waiting till Christmas before getting a clear picture of where we are is true in our case this season.
I have no idea what our best 11 is and im not sure MH does either. We have a few injuries at the moment which makes it difficult but again the recruitment has been so bizarre. No one but 57 year old Derbyshire to play upfront at the moment. No backup GK apart from Doyle. If Lewis got injured for any amount of time we would be in the shit.
3 wingers signed in the last couple of days in the window despite that clearly not being the original plan. A number of attacking mids although one was bought in as LWB. A whole host of defensive midfielders who will have to be chopped and changed due to McDonalds fitness and then 6 centre backs, 3 of which start then one gets pulled at HT as the formation isn’t working.
When we have a fully fit squad then I have absolutely no idea who plays. Trying to find room for McDonald, Gilly, Smallwood, Walker, Chapman and Pattison is a decent headache to have but for team cohesion and squad happiness.
I think it’s a mess.

 

I'm not obsessed but I do believe if you give a young player a three year deal you have done your homework and can see potential, I also believe the situation no matter what was supposed to have been the reason behind Young being banished this season could have been handled better.
Ahead of the 2023–24 season, Young was told that he could find a new club. In July 2023, Hughes revealed that Young had rejected loan moves away from the club. He missed the club's pre-season trip to Spain, and played with the youth team in a friendly against Bradford Park Avenue.
I don't think there is anything wrong with Bradford City fans commenting on the present situation with Young at Swindon no more than when Eion Doyle went to Swindon (how ironic) or James Vaughan telling the club he would not play again for the club it's what football fans do.
I wonder if Ryan has dared to pass comment on the situation regarding Young's form at Swindon, obviously he wouldn't do it in public but greeting Mark on a Monday morning with a quick reminder to what his nemesis did over the weekend.

 

I went down to the training ground on Thursday and coming away from that session it actually filled me with hope of what was gonna happen on Saturday. Well fook knows what was done between Thursday and Saturday because that was dire. Ok the second half was better but it could hardly be any worse could it ???? As for the injury excuses being laid out do we really think it would have made a huge difference had they played ????
Let's not forget that some of these injured lads have featured already and in all honesty it's been poor anyhow.

Still we move on to next Saturday a full week of Hughes gonna sort our problems out bullshit feeding to the masses.

 

Stockport and Mansfield are both top 4 sides per preseason odds, and that's just off the top of my head.

 

I was hoping they'd score so that the changes would be made sooner. Otherwise we'd have risked the same 2nd half with a winner late on and no time to reply.

 

Correct. If they had been the only two teams we'd played you'd have a point. We've played 7 games. The majority of those being teams predicted to be bottom half. Objectively that does not constitute a difficult start.

 

Great post

 

I actually don't get the lame arse excuses that come out of folk mouths that this is a difficult start ?????
Last season we dropped points at home against the bottom 4 no doubt some folk on here would have classed them as difficult games.
It simply doesn't matter who we play we will simply make any bog standard team look good because him at the helm allows it to happen.
Yesterday yet again was another example of letting a team come here and do what they want he ain't learnt a thing from last season and the sooner he's gone the better

 

I remember when we played Wolves when we both in League One. We went 1-0 up. Kenny Jackett, the manager of Wolves at the time, realised he fecked up with the tactics, and made a substitution 25 mins in. That Sub allowed him to change formation an tactics an from that point onwards, Wolves dominated the game an ultimately won 2-1. Thats the sign of a good manager, someone who is prepared to take risks an make changes the moment they realise they have messed up.

Hughes on the other hand waits till half time. In his entire tenure at City, one thing has always been evident for me. We always lose the midfield battle. Why is that? its because we always play with 2 men in the middle whereas practically everyone else plays with 3. We get overrun an we struggle to do anything with the ball. its why we always play backwards.

I don't rate Kelly at all, an im beginning to lose my patience with Platt. The formation doesn't suit them. Maybe Tomlinson coming in might change that, but irrespective, we don't look comfortable on the ball, which is pretty fecking stupid seeing as Hughes considers us as a possesion based side.

Hughes can't get the best out of Walker, its pretty evident why. Because everyone around him is so slow an lethargic with the ball, the moment it comes to Walker, he's usually got 3 men on him as he's one of our few attacking outlets. its why that responsibility should be shared, but we struggle because we don't spend enough time trying try to get the ball out on the wings, we persist with hoofing it up through the middle of the pitch, an hope the likes of Walker or Pattison can pick up the knock downs an make something out of nothing.

That brings me to my next topic. We're playing with Derbyshire up front. Granted he played shit, but how can you expect him to get into the game if your gonna hoof the ball up to him every 2 mins, he's being man marked by 2 6ft+ CBs.

You see with successful sides, players want to come an get the ball, you see with City that players shy away from the responsibility, they want to get rid of it as quick as possible an pass on the buck. Theres no off field movement, theres no willingness to recieve the ball. Thats either down to shit tactics or a loss of faith by the players, but either way that falls down to the manager an his tactics

All in all, I think its pretty evident where the blame lies for our shit form