The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Swindon Town Tuesday 25 October @ 7:45pm

Under Stuart McCall we seemed to go on endless losing streaks - can't see that happening.

 

Oh my god, just seen the pen - how can he give hand ball for that? His arm was by his side and Halliday was sideways on to the ref. He can’t possibly have seen it.
Coupled with the foul on Oliver beforehand, it’s just incompetent refereeing. Extremely frustrating.

 

Yeah, I've absolutely no idea how he can give that.

He is, AT BEST, guessing.

Whether he's right or wrong, he can't possibly know when he gives that penalty.

Bullshit refereeing.

 

Mark Hughes' substitutions were ultimately wrong tonight. Swindon were there for the taking but MH swapped like for like with Cook, for Oliver. Angol for Chapman. Cook wasn't getting any chances so why bring on the exact same player? I think Harret would have had chances in the channel and opened ST up.

 

Chrichlow and Wright were brilliant tonight though, both will prob go back to their clubs in January. Where are we without them?

 

Harratt was rubbish in the Pizza Cup but some are rating him like a Rooney regen. Four goals in 21 for Port Vale seems to say he’s not as good as people think

 

He would have offered something different given that Cook wasn't finding space. Surely it was worth a try?

 

I think Hughes sees Angol and Oliver as a pair, and they caused problems when they came on. Angol, in particular, should have done better, but chances were still being created.

I'm not fussed how many chances individual players get, as long as the team is creating.

 

I don't understand this
Only 3 wins from 8 home games
We have the players, we have the skills,
But we need the intensity for much more of the game than we are currently showing, we are so slow at times and it's costing us ....

 

So these are the handball rules from the FA’s own website: https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct

What do we make of that?

 

Looking at the highlights Halliday is side on to the ref so the ref is looking at his left hand side but determines that the ball made sufficient contact with his right arm to be a penalty (could not possibly or physically actually see from where he is positioned). I do hope the ref assessor mentions this in his report. It is clear the ref guessed that an offence occurred.

 

Probably one for the general football tab but it's a stupid rule, the penalty rebound one.

For me, an attacker forfeits his "free kick" once his penalty his saved. Any rebound should only be scored from a player outside the box. why should the taker get six yards head start on everyone else?

The obvious contradiction of the rule being if he hit the post and not Lewis's arm then he wouldnt have been able to score from the rebound. Although set in stone for a while now it's just another of footballs silly little rule quirks

 

I think (and hope) the return of Walker will coincide with an upturn in both Pierera finding the form of last season, and us being able to keep hold of the ball in the final third. I only managed to catch the 2nd half and we seemed at sixes and sevens in the middle of the park and far too open. Angol not laying the ball back to the pen spot is one of those making the right decision at right time, but he probably thought if he could score he’d be the hero. Greedy but I can see why he did it.

We’re really missing bite in the middle of the park too. Wright, Chapman, East, Pierera, Gilliead, Young are all fancy dan and too lightweight. I hope Hughes addresses this in January.

 

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.

 

Once the ref gives the penalty he won’t change his mind, we drew the game simply by not taking or created enough chances to kill the game off.
Even Platt said this in his interview in the T&A this week. Until we do this we will continue to be vulnerable to late goals and decisions all season.

 

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

 

I thought the complete opposite, same camera, same screen, same image, yet I thought never in a million years. I also wondered how the ref could see it?

 

It's probably the most blatant handball you will see this season.

 

For me, as a fan, nail on head Tony. Your stat says it all and if I heard right on the radio going home, two gaols in open play in the last five games and ten points behind the leaders (and second getting away too). The second half was a pale imitation of the first when we played some really good stuff but it all changed and that is becoming a regular occurance. Ten minutes into the second half all round me were saying we would be looking at a defeat and it was close, having said that, never a pen in this world, the Swindon fans influenced the ref and as MH said if that had been at the Kop end with us defending, he wouldn't have given it.
All that said we cannot rely on one goal every game.

 

I thought Platt was our best player first half.