The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Bradford City vs Swindon Town Tuesday 25 October @ 7:45pm

First half he was motm but 2nd half their lad had him on toast a few times. Like I say though his 1st half was what we always see from him. Great signing so far.

 

Argghhhh…. Frustrating game. Swindon will say they deserved a point, and on the balance of play I agree. HOWEVER we only have ourselves to blame. The moment for me was Angol not cutting it back to unmarked players. Pass the ball man.

Haven’t seen the handball back yet, but clear foul on Oliver in the build up. Bloody referees!

 

Entertaining game but should have got that all important second goal and am surprised they had more attempts and more on target than us- yet again City really didn't supply Cook with service.

One peeve for me was as Swindon went looking for the equaliser why was no-one shutting down their number 2 who was given so much freedom to get his crosses in from their right side.

 

First 10 minutes of second half we were asleep.
Over confident maybe. Lacksidasical.
Twice they went straight through the middle as platt got turned. They had more shots particularly in the second half and were probably worth the point as we didn’t kill them off. Why angol did stopovers when through instead of laying it off for a shot from around the pen spot I’ve no idea. Need to be more clinical.
The ref was poor. No idea if it was a pen as too far away from me. But Oliver got thrown to the floor in their box a blatant foul just as it was hooded up the pitch and they got the pen. Ultimately if we don’t kill teams off we allow for this type of issue to re occur. All in all a decent game between two teams trying to play football. Shot ourselves in the foot.

Plan B is a Singer.

 

Having just watched the replay, I think the lack of protest from our players and Halliday in particular is very telling. There was no getting up into the face of the ref to protest and a number players had their head in their hands. I think it was probably handball.

 

we leave ourselves open time and time again to let the ref influence a result .......... Saturday will be the same with not another crap official rocking up and if folk cannot suss out why there so bad then just look how bad they are at Premier league level ........... even with VAR they continue to get it wrong ......... the only people we can rely on is ourselves last night that game should have been killed before the ref got involved ........... I actually thought we played good last night on another day we would have easily sent them off with a good beating ........... got a feeling that if we are within the mix come Xmas time then our squad size may come massively into play when a fair few teams may start flagging

 

It’s still giving me a headache

 

I'm not sure you know, we'd be screaming blue murder if we hadn't gotten give for us

 

Halliday‘s arm by his side and his body is not “unnaturally bigger” (FA’s words not mine).

Plus how can referee Jeremy Simpson possibly see Halliday’s right side when Halliday is sideways on to the ref who can only see his left arm.

Frustrating isn’t the word.

 

Depends on team you're playing

 

On the lack of goals, I think we've missed Walker. He'll get goals in this team, shift Chapman to the right and I think we'll be more potent as a side.

 

Yeah I get that but these guidelines are surely for when the ball strikes an opponent who can't move out the way. In this case, it looked like Halliday leans into the flight of the ball. Its a deliberate movement to stop the cross. He can't get his body across in time so he leans in using his arm.

If having your arm down by your side can never be handball you'd see players using their arms to control the ball and gain an advantage all the time.

 

The part of the laws I don’t see being referenced here is “deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving the hand/arm towards the ball”. The next point is then about unnaturally bigger.

Halliday looks like he leans a bit towards the ball as it comes in. If it’s then hit his arm, even if by his side, that’s handball given in theory he’s far enough away for it to avoid his arm - really difficult to tell from the TV angle though if that’s definitely what he does.

Wasn’t there last night but from memory the assistant in that half is typically on the other side of the pitch to this. What I would say is the ref is some way outside the area, looking through at least 1 player at this. If the assistant on (presumably) the other side hasn’t seen it clearly - and I’m wondering how they could TBH - then how the ref has seen it to give it, given its on the side of Halliday’s body the ref can’t physically see, is beyond me.

Was it the correct decision in the end under the laws? Possibly.

Could the officials clearly see the incident to be certain? I don’t see how that’s possible based on the above. Happy to be corrected though re the assistant.

 

Definitely couldn't have seen it, therefore a guess, therefore extremely poor and weak refereeing.

 

Penalty was soft IMO but we had enough of the game and enough chances to get a second goal well before the penalty.

I actually thought some of the approach play and our control of possession, particularly first half, was the best I’ve seen this season given the opposition. Just a shame we don’t seem to be able to sustain it for a full game and/or react to opposition changes. I do wonder sometimes if Hughes has his system and sticks to it regardless of the situation. A few times we’ve seen the opposition change things around and wrestle the game from us and we’ve made like for like changes without changing tactically to address the issue.

 

Think Banks will make a difference when he comes back, though he does have a tendency to drift out of games. Chapman has been playing well and clearly has quality but has a bad habit of taking one touch too many, needs to start being more decisive.

 

Sounds like Swindon were similarly tired at the end of their last match and will look to rotate things as we might do.

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/23075021.swindon-town-head-coach-scott-lindsey-previews-league-two-trip-bradford-city/

 

Thanks Mark.