Fleetwood at home 9th February

Wonder how many people in this thread who are slating us had us down for a bet on the play offs a month ago?

 

I honestly had faith in Dave Hopkin and thought he'd get us well clear of a relegation place, but our last few game have had no consistency at all, and today was very poor.
Unfortunately with us gifting Fleetwood an early goal looked like they were more than happy to see out the game holding the one goal lead, we heard back in Phil Parkinson's and Stuart McCall's day they didn't have a plan "B" it's looking like the same can be said of Dave Hopkin, as much as I would like to disagree, I can't, after today's performance I'm worried.

 

Having a go at someone for poor spelling (predictive text) and then writing that? Oops!!!

 

Tactics needed changing, not necessarily the players. Have you got sun stroke from your time in Brisbane!?

Was it our anxiousness that caused us to kick the ball into the stands from the KO? We rushed from the 1st whistle and insisted on trying the same dull tactics

 

Zzzzz

 

Not really answered the question there have you?

 

Not me. I’d have had us down for relegation but the odds were too short. Even the bookies knew Hopkin would take us down.!!!!

 

If you can provide me with factual evidence of how much we are paying Clarke and Butterfield, and how much alternatives would cost, I’ll try to provide an answer...!

 

because it’s that easy isn’t it.. “hi, come play for bradford city. we’re in a relegation dogfight, you’ll have to move away from your family for 6 months, no we won’t guarantee you’ve a job come the summer.. and oh, we pay peanuts.

sign here please.”

 

Why am I doing all the work?

It’s quite clear from the window we could only get in players who were free or loans up to a point. And that was only when we had got rid of wages in Jones etc.

I don’t think we had a choice of tonnes of players that we turned down

 

didn’t rhodes or hopkin say the only way we got clarke in financially was allowing the miller deal to go through?

 

first 10-15 mins miller was showing signs of getting some joy in behind the centre-halfs with his runs from in to out and behind the full-back. ball and caddis found him a couple of times - once they went 1-0, they dropped 10 yards deeper and cut the space he had to move into and allowed our centre-halfs possession knowing they couldn’t feed the balls in to trouble them. their cm’s dropped on to payne, o’brien and ball and there was no way to get the ball into their feet.

like hopkin said post match, players like payne have to find space to get on the ball. even if it means dropping deeper. but then they have to use it well, something payne hasn’t done for a few games recently.

 

Why are you being asked to do all the work? Because you was the one that came out with the comment “with what money”. As I said, if you know how much we are paying our deadline day signings and how much it would have cost for the likes of Sammon or Holmes, you may have an argument.

As it stands, from the outside, it looks like a club with supposedly little money, spunking what they did have on like-for-like players, offering no alternative.

And even now, he has another centre-back and another central midfielder on trial. Not bad considering the purse is allegedly empty!!!

 

Maybe McCall has the Midas touch then? He managed to persuade players to do just that and on the back of it, won the MoTM award.

Maybe we should have signed Clarke but not increased our offer for Payne? Then maybe the ‘huge outlay’ that Rupp had to make could have been used on strengthening the whole team and not just 1 position?!

 

Not seen that so can’t comment. But if we were desperate for a winger and/or targetman, why not agree to cancel Miller’s loan and spend the money on bringing in a player more suited to Hopkin’s style?

 

It's silly to suggest Hopkin failed in the transfer market.

He outlined the positions he wanted to invest in, but wasn't able to do it. How is that Hopkin's fault? Did he put players off with his demeanour? Perhaps it was his dress sense? Was he wearing a kilt during negoatiations?

Perhaps people should ask Rupp and Rhodes about that instead, since they actually know the financial situation, and if there is a real, genuine interrogation, it has to be about how Rahic was allowed to be here in the first place - let alone let loose single handedly.

All of our present issues are down to that buffoon.

Make no mistake.

 

That doesn’t answer the question as to why we played some of the dumbest football i’ve seen at Valley Parade in many a year. I could have left after the first goal yesterday, gone home and written what the outcome of the game would have been without even watching the rest of it. It was painfully predictable, its the reason the boos at the wnd were primarily aimed at Hopkin.
The buck stops with him, hes the manager and he is responsible for the way we play with the players we have at our disposal. We played long ball all game yesterday, it hasn’t worked all season and guess what? With the type of player brought in the January transfer window it didn’t work yesterday. In fact, on the odd occassion O’Donnell remembered he had hands and rolled the ball out we actually got a corner out of an attack.
I accept defeat in football even though it makes me a grumpy sod for a day or two after, what i refuse to accept is dumb football tactics and thats what i witnessed yesterday.

 

Agreed. Massively naive to think January is as straight forward as ‘identify a player, sign him’. That’s a championship manager attitude. We were offered two strikers, both deemed not good enough, and another that went elsewere. Money was there clearly as it’s gone on wages, but that doesn’t mean it should be spent recklessly. The ‘target man’ that would have improved us, was not available this window.

 

Hopkin has said many times he isn't interested in playing with a 'target man'.

So you're saying that we couldn't get a winger, a forward, a decent CB in the Jan window?

People really over use it's hard to get players in the Jan transfers window as a massive excuse for failure.

You've watch us all season haven't you? We're a poor side. The players we had at the start of the season O'Connor, NKP, Doyle, Chicksen etc are not good enough. Our 1st 11 isn't good enough hence why we're in this mess.

So, to waste wages(money) on the likes of Anderson, Clarke etc the others Hopkin got in is pointless. Seriously what was the point in signing Billy Clarke? Can someone answer that for me?

We needed players to walk into our 1st team. Are you telling me we couldn't sign them in Jan?

Hopkin is lost. He is one confused manager. He's struggling. It was a shambles in the Jan window.

He doesn't know his ar@se from his elb@w at this minute and quickly needs to sort Bradford City out or we will go down!!

 

Certainly not me. I was persistently saying I would be happy with 20th, but never convinced that even that was achievable.

A poor January has closed, and we look no nearer to being capable of finishing 20th