The Voice - Match preview Gillingham vs Bradford City Saturday 16th December 2023 @ 3:00pm

It was a good win, hope you had a good time in Hebden Bridge.

There are few more thuggish players than Brad 'Nasty' Halliday, Richie 'Monster' Smallwood and Tyler 'Devil Himself' Smith.

These are 3 of the nastiest in the division

 

Not sure he was that anonymous, remember him rolling around 'injured' at least half a dozen times......other than that had no influence at all.....

 

I missed the game due to being on holiday but a comfortable win away at Gillingham is impressive

 

I wouldn't say Williams was anonymous, Kevin, I thought he did some good stuff in the first half but then faded out. I watch him and have noted he regularly gets hooked around 70 minutes, clearly can't do 90. As far as I'm concerned we have dodged a bullet when he did the dirty on us, Gills are welcome to him.
As an aside I've read his comments on the 'goal' in the T&A today. Speaking to a guy on the train home who was sitting on the goal line in the 'posh' stand he said it never went in and I agree Lewis possibly made what will be the save of the season.

 

Most pleasing for me was GA interview after the game came across as grounded and he knows there is a lot more work to be done before we are anywhere near hopefully us lot can keep backing once we hit a ropey spell

 

Remember Sunderland away, that wasn't even spurious.

 

Funny how we have different interpretations ….certainly not the force he was alleged to be. Certainly agree we dodged one there.
As I said yesterday Lewis is getting back to the keeper we know. I was delighted to see him coming out and punching the ball away. Something I don’t recall him doing much before. As long as the keeper isn’t blocked it takes the pressure off the inswinging corner.
I wasn’t impressed with them at all, I just couldn’t work out their formation. It seemed all over the place?

 

I had family at the game in the Sunderland end who said it was clear as day to them the ball went in. Only the referees seemed to think otherwise

 

Out doing Christmas stuff all day yesterday, so late to the thread. I thought a draw would be a good point. To get all 3 , score 2 and keep a clean sheet and have a bit of a hard side to us, shows what i have believed , but like many have sometimes lost site off, that this squad of players are far better than they showed under the previous manager.
Long may it continue. Doncaster will not be easy, their confidence must be at a low though and an early goal could see them go, Hopefully they don't react like we have done since half time at Notts. With 2 home games to follow, we could find ourselves in a very healthy place come new years day.

 

Don't need Williams now we have our captain back.

 

Did he say why Pointon and Chapman were not involved?

 

I was out in Doncaster last night with a few Donny season ticket holders and they've a horrendous injury list apparently, which was added to yesterday with their 2 main midfielders. They aren't expecting anything next week. Let's hope they're right. I like the levelness of GA, no looking further than the next game or bold predictions. Win the next game and keep going. I think he's put a lid on the fans expectations, only lifting it now and again to let the steam out.

 

This quote in the Kent Online from their manager made me laugh...

The Gills boss said: “They have had two shots on target and they have both ended up in the back of the net. Their goals were definitely avoidable and we can’t do that, we can’t give teams head starts.
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Yer, but you only had one all match, pal, so we had 100% more than you if we're using statistics!

 

You forgot Alex ‘bites yer legs’ Gilliead. Another total animal

 

No

 

We've also drawn at Stockport and Mansfield, should have beaten Wrexham and did beat Swindon. The squad is good enough, they just have to maintain (as the excellent Mark Bower put it) this 'relentless intensity' for the remainder of the season as that's what all the L2 promoted teams have in common.

 

Worst Gills side or performance from them I have seen for a few years . I have been to a few City games there in my time. Their expectations were ridiculous after spending the big dollars.

 

In fairness, in the league, we were unbeaten against all our promotion rivals, during 2023, under Hughes - including an equally good away win at Gillingham in March (or was it Feb?).

The problem with Hughes is he'd have been outfoxed by the likes of John Coleman - full L2 knowledge is vital for us to take that next step.

But let's not imply everything was terrible under Hughes. The squad is better in all aspects, when he left in comparison to when he joined us and we did get our best D4 position since 1982. Unfprtuantely, the wheels fell with his strategy, during the summer.

 

Do we believe Gent has done ok now or is it too early to call. These are the same players most of us would have ditched 4 weeks ago.

 

Not all of them…….The loanees on the whole , are a poor bunch and offer nothing to the first team, although Thompkinson, now given a chance maybe will come good.