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

Get East and Walker fit for 90 mins and Smallwood can have a baby every week based on Saturday

 

They had indeed won 3 on the bounce, including the might of Rochdale. However, they have only won 3 games in 14 in the league since mid October and currently sit 4th bottom of the league, staring down the barrel of relegation again.

#perspective

 

Nah, Cook must play because he's better than Oliver and gives us a credible goal threat. Nothing to do with the whoever we might be playing.

 

"Best midfield 3 in league 2" - banbrotam 2023.

 

Need to get back to winning ways and try and get some momentum after a crazy period of postponements.

Back to 4231 for me with Cook up front, Walker behind and Smallwood and Clayton as the deeper CMs. The wide areas is the biggest dilemma, not sure what the situation is with Banks and Chapman but would be good to get them back into the team. So far I’ve been pretty underwhelmed with Costelloe.

 

Yes.
Nevers and Banks for me and back to 4-2-3-1.
That formation at Mansfield against how they play was one of our best performances of the season.

 

He immediately made us the equivalent of 10 men. He’s not the reason for the result but simply not good enough. If you don’t strengthen the team when you come on, make sure you damn well don’t soften it. He did this today, absolutely not good enough for me. He’s nowhere near a starting XI IMO and don’t see what he offers from the bench. Bigger problem is bringing someone like Chapman on when we are defending a slender lead rather than owning a game either by score or performance. We rarely are in the position of dominating a game by either, meaning substitutions such as Chapman become more problematic.

On the plus side, Clayton was a step up on Smallwood - exactly what we’ve missed. Gillead has his game of the season.

Biggest concern is we still don’t look threatening enough up top.

 

With the amount of headers won in our box by Mansfield in the last 15 minutes Hughes should have brought Stubbs on to protect the 3 points , poor management.

 

Other results have gone favourably for us. So frustrating we never seem to capitalise on that when it happens.
How many points is that we've dropped now at home from winning positions? Must be getting close to 8 or 9 now.

 

They weren't the same tactics today, I thought you knew your football, we should have had more goals but it was a far better watch today, unfortunately, like both you and myself quoted we needed that 2nd goal.

 

Yet another 2 points dropped.

Inevitable equaliser. Groundhog day.

Dominated the game for 70 mins with some really good positive play, then we suddenly looked tired.

Lack of subs has cost us today and MH should be looking into the mirror as to why he didn't use more subs to put some pressure on them at the back for the last 20 or so. Oliver and Derbyshire should have been given a shot up top.

Yet another Saturday night ruined by lack of imagination by the manager.

Gilliead arguably had his best game for the club. Clayton was also a class above calm and always probing forward passes. Walker was effective in spells.

 

Not really we went for a second goal to kill the game in the second half but couldn't get it, Flinders making two good saves from Cook , Chapman not aware enough to pick the run out of Nevers as it would have given him a one on one like Esia's chance in the first half, Mansfield knew at 1 - 0 they were still in the game and had nothing to lose by attacking us as the game went on IE their centre half getting the equaliser from the full backs cross, the way the Mansfield bench celebrated you'd have thought they'd won the league.
Once again we showed without Cooks goals we have no other consistent goal scorer.

 

Couldn’t believe he blamed the ref for adding too much stoppage time. They scored in the first minute of time added on, did he expect the ref to blow for time bang on 90 minutes.

 

It’s the nature of the point though isn’t it?
Stockport were and are no better than Mansfield and definitely no better than us (I think we’re the best of the three).
He we played like we did today, with some positive intent, at Stockport then fans would be more positive about that result.
I’ve criticised us in recent weeks, including Stockport, but late shortcomings aside (again), I thought we put a good show on today.
A positive for me is that, yes we were under pressure, but at least we didn’t concede whilst sitting back putting on a negative cautious showing

 

I thought yesterday was a good game both teams putting a lot of effort in and a decent referee. Gilliead playing as captain made a great start and Cook just showing what a striker he his. Unfortunately maybe due to lack of fitness and changes in the second half we let it slip away . Chapman not passing the ball from his break late on cost us would have been 2-0 . We need to keep the faith it’s going to be long season .

 

How many times have we seen this already this season. We fail to stop the cross and concede a free header at the far post. I don't care how good our fullbacks are going forwards if they can't do their job in defence.

 

I haven’t given up hope just yet. Walker, Clayton, Stubbs, Bola, Odasebe, Banks, Derbyshire all should be big assets when they get upto full fitness. If we can stay there or thereabouts, we should be in a strong position at the business end of the season.

 

Overall after yesterday's performance I feel more positive about our chances than I did before kick off. Clayton looks like a massive boost for us. Like others have said he could be the perfect bit of recruitment.

 

On that showing I thought Walker was back to how he was, unlucky not to score. Another couple of games should see his fitness back to how it was.
Clayton , excellent game along with Gilly. East was the breath of fresh air I applauded before kick off.
The second half when they went 3-5-1-1 killed our midfield by smothering it with bodies.
Like all the teams we have seen recently, I thought Mansfield were average at best.
We should have honestly had three before half time, Walker unlucky, and Eisa should have buried his chance.