The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Stockport County Saturday 8th October @ 3:00pm

One thing these lacklustre home performances will do is put off some of the more sceptical, uncommitted walk up fans whom probably have less patience than season ticket holders ...

 

Hughes still hasn't got his best eleven sorted yet although Walker being injured doesn't help that. I wasn't too worried a few weeks back but there has been little cracks emerging which came to a head yesterday. I know how i would line up against us and what tactics i'd use, i'm amazed with some managers, it seems like they haven't done their homework.

 

I’m a season ticket holder and I’m starting to find it more and more difficult to leave the pub ............. cannot see many people coming down and paying on the day on the back of that .......... in all honesty has there even been that many games where your gonna wanna come back for more ????? Apart from the Stevenage game the rest of been of high standard have they ?????

 

I listened to the Barrow commentary when we played them and the one thing they said that stood out, was to put pressure on Platt and he’ll panic. Unfortunately we’ve seen this happen and when your centre half partner does the same, it hasn’t taken long for opposition managers to find our Achilles heel.
I think the loss of Odasebe and Walker, two players comfortable in possession, has ripped up the plans for Hughes on the way he wants to play. Their return can’t come quick enough and it won’t be until then, that we’ll see the dominant performances we were expecting.

 

I watch all of these tussles intently. 99% of the time it's impossible to tell whose handling who. Both players are usually grappling. The only solution is for the ref to let it go. The attacker is usually backing in to the defender with his arm in his midriff and the defender has his arm over the attackers shoulder to get over the top of him. It's almost always half a dozen of one and 6 of the other.

On the penalty issue, it makes perfect sense to me that a referee needs to be much more certain that a foul has been committed if giving a pen than for giving a free kick in the centre circle. I'm happy for referees to only give pens when he's absolute certain.

 

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.

 

It was without doubt the worst first half performance at home this season but to boo the team off.

 

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

 

Lewis is instructed to play out from the back but late in the 2nd half he either took it on himself to start going long or someone got the message to him to do so ..

 

No service blah blah blah, did you see the a great improvement when Oliver came, no neither did I, we had flesh legs but we still won little with regards aerial duals.

 

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

 

I don’t ever remember it being this bad and where will it all end?

In the past the ref either favoured the defender or favoured the attacker, with the odd decision going the other way. I’d rather go back to that because it meant that the jumps tended to be cleaner for fear of conceding the free kick. At the moment it’s just a judo contest and completely works against the attacker for either side.

 

I agree that it can't just go on ignored but the solution is much more difficult than merely saying refs need to clamp down on it. Usual scenario is long ball and the attacker backs in, arm outstretched into the body of the defender. Defender usually pulling on the arm (Odusina does it constantly) or trying to get arm over the shoulder of the attacker to get round them. Both players usually using their arm to gain an advantage. Impossible to know which way to give the free kick. That's why the refs just let it go.

 

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.

 

If you're good enough on the ball to have multiple approaches then by all means, go for it... but we aren't. When we tried going long, the amount of long balls to nobody was daft, the players weren't set or expecting it, we just gave the ball back most of the time.

 

Not sure Platt was our problem yesterday mate, your 2 CD have to have an understanding with regards how they defend together yesterday unfortunatly from Odusina's first misplace pass we looked disjointed at the center of our defence.
Was the occasion too big for Odusina he was miss timing his challenges both in the air and on the ground, as someone pointed out the lads on a 3 year deal will being subbed at half time have an effect on him going forward when you think Critchlow, Songo'o and possibly Foulds could be considered before him going forward.
Agree with your Walker & Odasebe comment.

 

Late on in the game Hughes was gesturing to Lewis to hit long balls, it suprised me it took so long for us to realise playing out from the back with Stockport players in our faces was not working and we needed to change things.
Once again we saw a team come and mix it up causing us problems, a team sat top of the league play long ball/ dark art football and are looking a good bet to get promoted few teams get out of this league by playing one dimensional football there is a time when playing long ball can be effective, especially when as we saw yesterday playing out from the back was so ineffective.