The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Northampton Town Saturday 19th November @ 3:00pm

Seriously? He's been fantastic for the last three months. One off game and he's a shocking excuse for a defender. Ridiculous.

 

Northampton were far and away the best league 2 team to visit valley parade in at least the last 2 seasons. Their pace, mobility and movement off the ball is something rarely seen at league 2 level, and it’s very easy to see why Hoskins has scored at the rate he has. Service a plenty. Could have finished 0-6 and would have been fully justified. I have no doubts Northampton will be promoted this season.

however, if this is the standard we need to be at, we have a lot of work to do and must strengthen in January. We need osadebe back to replace gillead. Our midfield is so stagnated. Smallwood has no pace, and coupled with gillead, it’s a poor pairing. I don’t believe Smallwood is a poor player, but him and gillead at home where we should be on the front foot just doesn’t work. A front 4 of Chapman, banks, wright and cook is a very capable front 4. The issue is that our midfield pair don’t get the ball forward quick enough to exploit space, and by the time it’s up there, the oppo have set themselves, and then it becomes difficult where we’re marked out of the game. We then need to overcompensate by moving other members of the team further forward which leaves us wide open to the counter.

I’m not sure what Ryan East needs to do to get a game, but he is much more able than gillead. Jake young has disappeared off the face of the earth who also Carries a goal threat.

today was a rancid performance, and is probably the worse we’ve been all season. Very disappointing given the crowd and the occasion.

however not the end of the world. We’re in 5th on merit. But we desperately need to improve at home if we have any chance of autos.

 

Agree entirely.
Love the sanctimonious attitude of some on here.
What the f@ck has it got to do with anybody else if people leave early.

 

The Valley Parade hoodoo continues and again we see a team come to VP and 'do a number on us'. As with most home games this season we saw a theme develop where we look tidy enough for half an hour without creating anything of note, then the dreaded edge of our own box passes become more frequent. We make a mistake (this week we didnt get away with it like we have done previously), heads go down we concede another and should have again. Crowd then boos them off, we come out second half, look as bad as the first, try and change it up and look even worse. And as soon as we take Chapman off and bring Oliver on to go 4-4-2 we as well give up cos it's not worked once yet.
A strange conundrum and one Hughes is gonna have to give serious thought too, our away form is automatic promotion, our home form is lower half of the league at best. How he fixes it I'm not sure, we have no plan B to speak of so it's a case of tweeking the plan A that works so well away from home. As Hughes said after that first goal at home is imperative to changing the general malaise around Valley Parade right now, a malaise that is getting very hard.to shift. He's gonna have to work out how to get the best out of Andy Cook, yet another home game where we created nothing for the lad, he had to earn his own penalty.
We ain't out of the running by any stretch but he's gonna have to change the mindset because the fantastic home crowds are restless.

 

what penalty? lewis clearly got the ball with his hand.

 

Very odd game. First 30 minutes was a bit frantic but I think we shaded it and should've been ahead through Chapman.

Then Smallwood gifts them the first goal and our heads completely implode and we should've been five down in the second half.

Couple of issues with the team selection. Eisa wasn't ready for a game like this yet - Wright is sharper and fitter so should've started. Last week was a game for Songo'o with their style but not today. Their balls over the top and into the channels exposed his lack of pace massively. I know Odusina was poor last time out but this game would've suited him better. He's also left sided, which would've helped us because I lost count of how many shanked clearances went into the stands from Songo'o.

Northampton looked good after the first goal. They were fitter, sharper, stronger and more aggressive which is generally how to beat us.

Home form is complete crap. Another big crowd and occasion and we've bottled it again. Really demoralising.

 

Bloody hell. Fell asleep listening to Salford match and woke up to this thread. I thought I had slept through Christmas for a few seconds there

 

Preferable, but not essential.

A good fan base that's proud of their support will be vocal even watching gibberish football.

We've been there ourselves, making a lot of noise when we're playing badly against basement sides.

We're a bit quieter than we have been in previous years, but I also think we're success starved under Rupp and have lost momentum as a fan base (at home, though signs are improving, certainly in terms of ticket sales and the success we're seeing).

I'd like to see us be loud at home without encouraging or accommodating annoying fans who want to invade the pitch, throw objects, and bring 'pyrotechnics'. That's not atmosphere, and it doesn't add to it, it's just kids being chavs.

 

Very odd game. Was pretty even until we gifted them the first goal and then we crumbled. From then on they looked far better than us and we didn’t get close to them.

As we’ve seen already this season, we struggle without Critchlow at the back, he’s essential for us. I’d really like to see East play instead of Gilliead, especially at home. Not quite sure why Gilliead is keeping his place week in week out (although based on today you could argue Smallwood should also be dropped).

 

Only 1 man to blame for these home performances and that’s Hughes.
His stubbornness in not playing 2 up front at home will be his downfall.
And how did Eisa start before Wright. Criminal decision

 

Can't agree we were very much in the game for 30 minutes or so until Smallwoods error which cost us and before we could sort ourselves they hit us for two.
Yes we went downhill from there losing our shape and couldn’t make a simple pass, no one wanted to take responcability what we seem to lack is a Gary Jones or Nathan Doyle to steady the team, I'm very disappointed with our Captain his corners and set pieces have been poor resently, for me he's not the influence I thought he would be coming down from the Championship.

 

All the pre match hype centred around City leapfrogging Northampton Town into an automatic place.
Typically the Bradford public bought into that and duely obliged in number's.
Unfortunately individual mistakes all game coupled with a lack of tactical and the persistent slow build up employed at the moment seldom did home fans get a chance to be positive verbally.
After the two goal salvo from Northampton it was clear to me regardless of all the time left that the game was out of reach The players body language suggested as much to me and obviously Northampton we t on to score a third.
I stayed till the final whistle but it was far from pleasing on the eye shall we say.
Anyone who left early had their reasons it was a thoroughly depressing afternoon all round knowing what could and should have been so,so different had the team turned up

 

I really hope we put down a marker with a performance befitting a crowd of nearly 18,000. Would be great to have VP rocking again.

 

That's not how it should work.

Palace is always bouncing, and they're no world beaters.

You don't have to have a team of world beaters to cheer them from the stands.

 

Impressed with Northampton. They're a better version of what we try to do. Play decent football but with more purpose and threat. We dick about with it on the pretense of 'playing football'. Fair play to em. Unless we adapt, we'll not be getting top 3.

 

Northampton were simply better than us. I think our problem is in midfield with Smallwood and Gilliead. Both are too similar and don't really get forward creatively. Added to that in today's performance they didn't give us anything to write home about defensively.
As a result we were wide open in the middle and the front 3 and Cook never got a look in.
I think Ryan East needs a go in the side.
I know Hughes won't want to drop Smallwood as he is captain, but he was poor today.

 

Can't disagree there was little in it until Smallwoods shocking pass, but we never looked like getting back into the game, yes it's difficult at 2 - 0 down but as a team we had no answer to Northamptons counter attacks.
2 - 0 with the second 45 minutes plus extra time gives you a chance if you change things, I was honestly disappointed Sparkie didn't make at least one change at half time.

 

Availability per stand:-

North West Corner: 198 seats

Main Stand: 959 seats

Midland Road: 493

Kop: 1,270

17,500 sold.

 

Let's hope so because the players fell way short of the big crowd expectations against Donny and Stockport.