The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Mansfield Town Saturday 4 February 2023 @ 3:00pm

Ironically, yes.

Smallwood being out, no Songo'o actually cost us today.

We ran out of midfield oomph, and had no options on the bench.

We fell apart after 70 minutes with 33 year old Clayton tired, Walker tired, East tired, and only Gilliead with a 90 minute engine.

 

He's making out like the goal was some freak occurrence within the context of the rest of the interview, almost as if it would have only happened in such odd circumstances whereas the truth was, one way or another, the goal was coming. One hit the bar, one cleared off the line and you knew what was next. Also the guy had stayed up because the attack wasn't over. Hughes was implying the cb just couldn't bother jogging back. In truth he sensed he'd get a chance whereas we switched off and left him unmarked.

 

Our inability to hold a lead or even add to it has killed us this season. We played really well in the first half despite not increasing our lead. Second half we started to sit back presumably fatigue of key players.

I actually thought we would bring Derbyshire on at half time so we could give them something else to think about and I would have taken Eisa off. As they started to load up our box i had forgotten we had sold Songo, but in any event we were not strong enough to get a second the next option is to protect our lead, and brought on Stubbs for his first outing and sacrificed Cook.

I enjoyed the match with a certain amount of frustration. For once I thought the ref was fair and consistent no complaints from me.

Can we keep the replacement Gilliead please, he is much better player than his namesake. Bola what a great game he had, never write a player off after one game. Clayton was outstanding and calm, loved watching him pull the strings in midfield. East was good as well running around picking up loose balls. Who put the cross in for Cook?

The players did their part to the best of their abilities, but MH needs to be more proactive to the game he is watching, not the one he planned in his head.

 

Agree it was a decent game to watch. Honestly did we miss Smallwood at all? I thought East did a very good job in there and noticeably had much more energy. Gilliead was superb as well. Clayton very calm on the ball. Overall our midfield played its best 70 mins for a long time....... then fatigue set in. Chapman a huge disappointment-he really flatters to deceive and his out put this year has been shocking.

Wouldn't have minded to see Oliver and Derbyshire on for the last 15 to give them something to think about instead of sitting back and letting them bomb on at us for the last 20. We all knew the goal would eventually come. It's just what we do at City these days.

 

Have to say I thought Walker played really well, particularly first half. You could see he was knackered though, hopefully he’ll keep improving.

 

Agree with all this, also even though the disappointment of the late goal the players in the main were actually clapped off by most fans which is a first when we haven’t won this season. So the performance obviously resonated with the fans, just need better fitness to get us over the line. But there were more positives than negatives, which hasn’t been the case with a fair few games, even in some wins.

 

You’ve put team and crowd in the wrong places

 

Fu@kin hell,
You’ve done it now.
Ammo for the “it’s always the refs fault” brigade.

I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

 

Two points lost in the second half!

Chapman was asleep as soon as he came on and never woke up!

 

Started out with Great Expectations

 

We're in February in Scotland

 

For me it wasn't because he brought Walker off (who was blowing out of his arse) but we had no one like Songo'o to help see the game out.

 

He shouldn’t be, and it’s not a criticism of Smallwood, but that performance today was very good.
We need to take our chances otherwise we’ll come unstuck again, but it was a marked difference from recent weeks.
We need more of the same and the results will, more often than not, come

 

I actually think that squad is good enough but he simply ain’t using them in the right way ............. you put that prick Evans at the helm and we would be a lot better off ............ but what do we do ???? Go with someone else ???? I mean if this is a long term project where we go after promotion next season then ok I get it ..........,, but there are simply no signs that he will get it right n the long term and with the teams above us with far smaller budgets then he is failing very badly ............ it could all change again next week at Stevenage a win there and it looks a bit brighter but all we seem to be doing is following one good win with another bad defeat ............ to me a club this size cannot be waiting around while a manager pisses around with a system that doesn’t work ............ I will be decked if the club agreed that it would be a 2 year project to get us out of this league .........,,frankly I can see thousands going missing next season unless we either pick up the pace or we actually look like something going forward and at the moment we look like neither and tbh honest it bleeding frustrating as hell ...............I know crowds and budgets don’t always guarantee success but it should help big time but what are us poor sods putting up with ???? A man who thinks we are all daft and are blinkered by what’s going on .............blaming officials for injury time when they scored one minute into it sorry but that’s a man trying to get away with his own shortcomings .............. he sat there last week and watched Wrexham and frankly the so called hoof ball merchant put him to shame ............. sod the messing about and just bombarded the area it’s so simple yet so effective

 

It doesn't hinder us at all. The facilities are as good as any league two team. Who owns them are irrelevant. What difference would it make if Rupp or BDMC owned them and we rented from them ? What difference would it make if we bought them from Woodhouse Grove.

Answer in both cases is absolutely none.

 

The midfield worked yesterday I thought.

Smallwood can’t come straight back in.

 

Entertaining game, enjoyed the first half in particular, where we played some great football in an open, end to end game. Once again though our failure to capitalise when on top cost us. Our first half dominance only yielded a couple of decent chances and we only scored once. Mansfield we’re able to regroup at half time and then deserved their equaliser.

Keep playing like that though and we will win more than we lose, especially as the likes of Walker and Bola get more game time and match fitness. Overall though I can’t be too downbeat about the game, it was an enjoyable game with chances are both ends. Can’t say that about a lot of our recent games.

 

My reflection on yesterday is an odd one for me as my normal mood after a game like yesterday with a late equaliser is I'm normally well pi55ed off, but for some reason I'm not too bothered. It was a good game with entertainment and despite late disappointment with the equaliser they were worthy of a point. I've totally lowered my seasons expectations recently from thinking we got to get autos to nowadays just thinking fk it all we gotta do is hit 7th. Yes we should definitely be aiming higher but this line of thought as certainly helped my mood swings regarding City games
New players my early thoughts are, well I got to say I'm very impressed with Clayton so far, no thrills but what an experienced head he looks in the middle, he's like the Smallwood we all thought he was going to be. Bola I'm still not totally convinced as yet but tbh is improvement yesterday in regards to his debut performance was a huge leap in the right direction so if that improvement level continues he should be a decent addition, with Nevers he looks very raw but I dont mind these types as no one has a clue what's coming next could be row Z or top corner.