The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Stockport County Saturday 8th October @ 3:00pm

We won’t even top 19k, if someone had said that in the 70s when 5,000 was a good crowd I’d have thought they were dreaming of getting anywhere near that. It’s incredible how our support base has grown from what it was in the 60s to 80s. The football public of Bradford were largely disinterested in those days with half the football public still bitter about Avenue and wouldn’t go near Valley Parade. Even Trevor Cherries title winners of the 84/85 season would only attract 5 to 6000. It’s brilliant now walking up North Parade and seeing so many City supporters young and old going to watch City.

 

Hate the booing, especially on the back of a decent unbeaten run. By all means don't stay and applaud them off at the final whistle, but booing is just embarrassing

 

If you think, even for one minute, that Rhodes would have sanctioned the budget that Hughes has spent then you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

Rhodes was the type of chairman that would have turned down MH just to avoid the criticism when supporters realised that he wasn't being properly backed.

 

Speaking purely as a FAN and nothing else, I've missed 4 of the last 6 games with holiday and other commitments but have followed through other sources and there's a pattern. The first two Tranmere and Stevenage fair enough but Wimbledon, sat back on a lead and very nearly lost. Harrogate sat back on a lead and should have lost but for Lewis. Leicester sat back on a lead and lost.
Yesterday round me were all agreed Timi should have been off before the pen, rabbit in the headlights which put others off their game in the back four, one of those days for him. Then look at Dion, I never got the love in for him. He has the safety of a new contract at Luton and clearly isn't that bothered. For me, send him back. Then look at Chapman. My friends at Blackburn told me we had a jewell, he may be but at L1 or Champ level, yet to proove in our rough and tumble in my view.
Dennis, you're right about the two injuries you mention, especially Walker which is a big miss for me but then further apart, Eisa??, injured again, the new Zeli Ishmail. His brother is at MK and has had the same injuries I'm told, will he ever play, I don't know but what is clear is no press, predictable and the sooner MH fixes his ideal team and sticks the better. I have every confidence he will.

 

I’ve said it a couple of times already this season but it’s tough to recall a really good, dominant performance from us this season. Results have been pretty good but overall I don’t think we’ve played that well. We’ve had short spells in games where we’ve looked good but haven’t really had a dominant performance.

Now it seems teams are realising that maybe we aren’t quite as good as they thought, and rather than sitting back and showing us too much respect (like Crewe or Doncaster) they’ve started to come after us and the cracks are showing. We were lucky to get a point against Wimbledon and we were comfortably beaten by Stockport. Work definitely required on how we navigate a high press.

 

Give over. Platt has been very good this season, but poor yesterday. No need for your last comment, it’s out of order

 

Poor from first till last , bullied all over the pitch. Reality check today and still awaiting a good performance.

 

Our crowd needs to get behind the team from the first whistle, yes we were poor yesterday but thats when us fans need to chant, sing etc and support the players, if for nothing else to out chat the away support which unfortunatly we didn't yesterday.
That's not blaming our fans just my take on what happens if we go a goal down or don't perform as we would like surely that's more of a reason to get behind the players, booing as the players left the pitch at half time was shocking IMO.

 

When was the last season we were able to do that, make changes that are not detrimental to the strength of the starting 11, decent cover in every position on the pitch that Hughes is no fool we've asked him to deliver promotion and he's been given the tools to do exactly that.

 

We are down for our first match of the season, looking forward to seeing the new City team in the flesh.

 

Spot on re the ref. The ref was fine. Its 4th division football. Far too many fans see the officials as a convenient excuse for poor results and performances. We lost today because Stockport controlled the game from start to finish, we played poorly and we seem to be naive to the reality of what success at this level is based upon.

 

Boy we were poor today.

We didn’t deserve anything!

 

Teams who have come to have a go, either with physicality or a high press, have caused the back four problems. Teams who have sat back cause other problems but do allow our back four a bit of a free passage. Hughes is gonna have to think about this passing out the back when a team presses, the players simply aren't good enough to pass through it. Certainly not with a midfield two that are easy to close down. And this ain't just off the back of the one defeat in 8, its been obvious to anyone who knows football and credit Challinor for doing his homework.

 

Saw Walker before the match he was running normally he said it would be about three weeks before he was ready

 

The bulk of our struggles is completely self inflicted.
Huge fan of Lewis and people rave about his distribution, but it’s either sloppily pass it around at the back, or play the long diagonal ball to the full backs (who invariably take it at chest height and have a man pressuring them before they’ve even had chance to control the ball).
The midfielders come deep to take the short ball then we’re short of options higher up the pitch.
I’m finding it really really frustrating to watch, more so because I actually think we have the players to play a more aggressive and direct game which would be more to our strengths

 

I have never shown my displeasure by booing any performance over 60 odd years. Exasperated of course but booing …..is for kids.

 

Behave. Rhodes should be nowhere near running an ambitious football club. I'm not Sparks biggest fan but I accept he's done a good job on the off field stuff in the last few months. The figures speak for themselves.

 

I love it and feel an immense sense of pride we attain such crowds , cheap tickets or not.
Remember the low crowds well. Are support now is fantastic

 

A game to forget today. The pattern of the game was evident from the early minutes ith Stockport targeting the hapless Odusina who looked like a fish out of water. And that generally laid the foundations for the rest of the game with County's quicke press making City look distinctly average. I wasn't so worried a few weeks back but now there a cracks appearing that need to be remedied before they become major fault lines. A lack of chance creation for an in form striker and a back four relaint on an in form keeper to pull them out the shit every other week. Certain players playing themselves out of contention like Halliday and Periara and a central midfield where both players seem very similar rather than complimentary. Hughes realised.this at half time but we seem to be making a formation change every game which suggests our plan A isn't really working. A workmanlike yet fairly limited Stockport side sussed us out quite easily, and a few managers have been able to do that.

 

It is based on hard work at this level. Yes skilful players are also required but there is no substitute for hard work.
We didn’t work hard enough, we seemed void of ideas. We didn’t press them in effectively. We were slow and I can’t remember us getting to the second and loose ball first all match.

Plus tactically we seem to play the same way every game, so easy to plan against us. One of things that gets me is we invite pressure. Every corner we had nobody left out to pick up the ball. They do this every match, leaving a pace player out there we miss out on an opportunity to kill them on the break and it invites pressure.
Overall, a poor performance and we need to up our game, and we need to adapt to the match conditions.