The Voice - Match preview Crawley Town vs Bradford City Friday 7th April @ 3:00pm

I agree the roller coaster of watching Bradford City has been chugging along for all my 50 years or so
My point is that a team pushing for autos should beat a team 3rd from bottom good run of form or not
whether it Bradford City or whoever especially at this time of the season the table doesn't lie
However I do agree we are and always have been the specialists of letting teams on a bad run end their barren spell
and vice versa teams on a good run we beat!!!
2 points dropped yesterday every team in the top 9 would have expected us to win

 

I am a supporter as are you! If it’s the playoffs then so be it, we have had success and failure in equal measure in the playoffs, but none of that matters. We go out and give it everything, and let’s hope Lady Luck puts in an appearance, we have had precious little this season.

 

Yesterday's result was worse Dave because games are running out we had more of the season to recover
You are right yesterday's result won't be the one that causes us to miss out but another 2 points would certainly have helped the other way
It just piles on the pressure for Monday now

 

I think that as @Park bantam said earlier this season a play off place would be failure for the season.

However, if it is to be that then so be it but currently we are not good enough and count on Cook too much to win the play offs. Things need to urgently change over the next few weeks.

The same mistakes or thought process keeps happening like Smallwood taking free kicks, Cook battling away on his own. Walker running in to walls. Banks not beating a man, defenders not scoring and lack of shooting in general etc.

 

Agree. That’s why I was confused by Hughes decision to start Darbyshire yesterday. I sort of get it, but given the opponents and the games in front of us, added to the impact he made against Grimsby, I’d have rather seen him off the bench yesterday and start Monday. Likely he’ll start Monday also but as you say, when he gets to 60mins and ready to go off, his replacement options are nowhere near strengthening us, on current form….

 

Who picks this?

 

You asking me out?

 

Someone who needs an optician's appointment.

 

I thought Halliday was one of our better players yesterday TBF.

 

I said the play offs would be the minimum anything else would Be a failure. I still think this set of players are being held back slightly from above. We don’t get bodies in the box when crosses come in there is very little movement upfront for defenders and midfielders to exploit and our set pieces are probably less productive than any of the top teams which means we are reliant on one goalscorer. The positive is in the main we defend very well which means we don’t lose many which if we reach the play offs may stand us in good stead

 

I said the play offs would be the minimum anything else would Be a failure. I still think this set of players are being held back slightly from above. We don’t get bodies in the box when crosses come in there is very little movement upfront for defenders and midfielders to exploit and our set pieces are probably less productive than any of the top teams which means we are reliant on one goalscorer. The positive is in the main we defend very well which means we don’t lose many which if we reach the play offs may stand us in good stead

 

No, you said play offs would be a failure. Stop backtracking.

 

It's going to be absolute nip and tuck until the last day of the season. But no worries - our final match is at home! Against...oh, er Leyton Orient. Oh well, whatever, it's going to be an up and down exciting run-in. Long time since we were anywhere near involved in the final furlong.

 

It's been a weird one Park. Top scorer in Div 2, one of the best defensive records of any side, but you're right. For all MH's tactical changes during games, we can't get our midfielders onto the score sheet any way enough - and have any of our defenders scored a single goal between them this season? Can't recall. It's been a right old conundrum all season - Halliday particularly has many assists, Rides is a good crosser of the ball, but none of our central defenders has ever remotely threatened scoring a set-piece goal. Ho hum, games to go, fingers crossed.

 

We'll be in the play-offs Dave, agree. Still automatics chance too. Who knows who might bottle it during the run-in? It always happens.

 

You're not really my type but if you offer more than Costelloe can you get down early on Monday and bring your boots

 

Isn't it strange how we all see stuff differently. I thought he had one of his poorer games and gave the ball away lots

 

Wish football in L2 was that straightforward Bantam Steve. Crawley aren't just fighting relegation, they're desperately trying to stay in the Football League. Credit to them, they battled like hell and were at us from minute one. Games to go and we're still in the mix. Fingers crossed, mate.

 

Yeah fingers firmly crossed can't stand another season in L2
Do you mean that with them "battling relegation and trying to stay in the football league" they battled harder than we did we were supposedly battling to get out this terrible league are you saying they wanted it more than we did if so I can accept that

 

Yes but he was always making himself available, so his bad crosses were always going to be on the up. Banks was always passing it back for him to cross and Smallwood was doing that as well. So yes it wasn’t one of his best, but he didn’t go missing.