Harrogate Town (A)

We could go into the first league game with some of the first team not actually playing together before and others with only little game time together. The result yesterday tells us where our fringe and junior players currently stand but tells us nothing about how the first team will shape up or any particular formation. We have made some decent signings pre season but don’t expect them to gel straight away, it will be virtually a new side come the Shrewsbury game. As for the Harrogate pitch debate, we didn’t seem to mind risking our development squad on it so it can’t have been that bad. Or maybe we just don’t reallly care about them.

 

I don't blame any of the youth players selected for yesterdays performance, that blame lays with whoever picked this team for this particular game. however I do worry about the ability of the players picked yesterday who are perhaps on the fringe of the first team.

Isherwood (centre half) looks the type of player who thinks he's better than he is, and your just waiting for his next clanger.

Wood at full back didn't have the pace or strength to cope yesterday, and his communication with Isherwood seemed non existent.

Devine gave up half way through first half and went off.

Omari Patrick should never be any were near our first team. he coughs up possession every time he's given he ball.

Clare although he scored 2 goals didn't win a single challenge in the air or on the floor until is first goal (60 odd mins)

only player IMO with any credit today was Robinson

 

First friendly last season
https://www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk/matches/fixtures/first-team/201718/july/tv-

Last 3 friendlies.
https://www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk/news/2017/july/sunderland-match-report/
https://www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk/news/2017/july/newcastle-united-match-report/
https://www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk/news/2017/july/fc-halifax-town-match-report/

The majority of first teamers played the last 3 friendlies.

 

I'm guessing that taking yesterday's game out of the equation, it will be similar this year as well, with the majority of first teamers playing against Sunderland last week, the behind closed doors game on Tuesday and Carlisle next weekend. So not sure why everyone is panicking.

 

Can't understand the debate about the pitch.

B.C.A.F.C. must know that the pitch is artificial.

It (the pitch) can't be hard and it can't be soft - it is simply the same throughout the year.

It is not like the old pitches (as per QPR many years ago) - it is a very good playing surface and there is no increase in the likelihood of injury.

And just to confirm, the "Bradford XI" were outplayed. And I agree with those that comment that this is not the way to develop young players/talent.

From a non-Bradford prospective, it all adds to a rather farcical situation. I feel sorry for both the Bradford fans that made the journey and for Harrogate Town - a nice ground who seemed to be taking a professional approach to their football.

I had hoped to see Jack Payne - it would have been ideal for him - jinking around with the ball on a lovely surface. Shame.

 

On a side note does anyone know what Harrogate are aiming for this season. I’m presuming they are not trying to get promoted so is it just consolidation?

 

Trevor, whilst I agree with you that the preparation for the game was shambolic, I don’t agree that the performance or result was indicative of whether the players can make it or not.

This game was arranged prior to the coaching staff getting employed. So who arranged this game and how come they didn’t know about the artificial surface? Then, with the coaching team in place and a concern with the pitch, why wasn’t another game lined up for our 1st team squad? They didn’t have to put out our starting XI, but the majority of the squad should have been given minutes on the pitch

Let’s not forget, our 1st game was cancelled because of the pitch at Farsley and no game was ever set up to replace it. So we were already 1 game behind schedule, before yesterday. I hold Greg wholly responsible for this debacle. Ok, I know he had other things on his mind when he set this game up, but if he believed he was capable of carrying out his duties, then he has no excuse. This just proves he should have handed the reigns over earlier than he did.

As for the game itself, this is where we disagree. We saw plenty of Premier League/Championship u23 teams being totally outplayed in the last 2 seasons of the JPT (or whatever it’s called now). Those clubs didn’t start panicking and releasing those players simply because they got their asses beaten by the likes of Yeovil, Accrington etc (you get the point).

The term ‘development’ means the process of being improved. Let’s see if any of the players learned anything from the game before we hang them all out to dry

 

I agree with most of this Kevin, but it still doesn’t explain why the fixture was arranged in the 1st place. It’s not like Harrogate installed the 4g pitch this summer.

If we don’t like playing on this surface for the risk of injury, why set it up in the first place? And why wasn’t a replacement game set up well before now, for the 1st team to take part in, instead?

As for the rest of your post, I fully agree

 

Not to play anyone likely to figure in first team selection.!

Of course we knew they had a 3G pitch, we have played them twice previously on itprior to this game, I believe ( but could be wrong)
For all we know it could have been a planned outing for the kids all along, no one knows except the club. Irrespective, I see nothing wrong with being flexible at this stage of the close season. I wonder how many other league clubs have played these type of friendlies.........ALL of them!

For example Norwich ran out half first team squad players plus kids playing Kings Lynn two weeks ago. They scraped a win with two goals in the last 20 after going behind. They can do it because they have a huge squad (30ish?)
We haven’t , so we should not risk injuries aka CW being a prime example.

Nowt wrong with the kids losing imho... but let’s please understand it’s nothing to do with the first team squad or the owners, or the price of car parking at Harrogate Town

 

See my comment to Idle... May explain. Cheers

 

The pitch can't be hard and it can't be soft - it is simply the same throughout thIt (the pitch) can't be hard and it can't be soft - it is simply the same throughout the year. year.

Are you saying rain or dry weather has no impact on the sub surface?

 

Thank you.. kids were outplayed by adults.... huge shock that one!

 

Posted in another thread but relevant here,
Most experienced clubs arrange 2 preseason schedules, One for the first team squad against lower league clubs and then one at least a league above to finish at home with a crowd,
Then a second schedule against non league sides for the youth/development players to gain fitness and for the coaches to judge them to see any progress made

 

Read your comments and no, it doesn’t answer the question. I’ll ask again.

If we knew they had an artificial surface installed 2.5yrs ago, why set up a fixture if we didn’t want to risk injuries? And having decided not to risk the 1st team on that surface, why wasn’t a replacement fixture set up for them?

I get that clubs give run-outs to 1st team squad mixed with youth players and a smattering of trialists. But not the penultimate game of pre-season.

Show me any other fixture yesterday where the majority of 1st team players were ‘rested’, outside the Premier League. At this stage of pre-season, players should be getting minutes, not sitting in the stands (like at York last week), or out altogether. With only Carlisle to come (prior to the hastily arranged behind closed door game), we only have Carlisle left to play. And many of the players have yet to play together, let alone play for 90mins

 

Hopefully they will have learned a lot BB. Collins alluded to this in his post match interview, suggesting a few of the players may have thought they were Bertie big b*ll*cks before the start of the game because they were playing for Bradford City against lowly Harrogate and all they had to do was turn up and pull on the shirt (I'm paraphrasing obviously and in my head I'm thinking 'he was definitely talking about Patrick'). He said that he wants all the players to realise that if they want to make it as a professional footballer, they are going to have work hard every single day and not just think they have made it because they have signed for city. It will have been a rude awakening for a lot of them but if they are serious about making it, hopefully it will encourage them to push on and put the effort in that's needed.

 

Match fit..... ??? A few on the old board said there was no such thing... psst I agree with you though

Why would it be hostile.. ?

 

Well said!

 

Second paragraph ie your question.
It could have been arranged initially for a developer game , we don’t know, but even if not it shows we continued with the fixture playing kids instead. For reasons that are documented. As said earlier the club didn’t communicate this sufficiently. However the signs were there via Parker I believe?

Peterborough friendlies in the last two weeks

Stamford, Bedford Town, PSL (Peterborough Sports ) and St Neots (subject to the playing surfaces meeting the standard’s required). They aren’t playing in England this week as they are in Portugal on a “ get to know each other (they need to ) one game being played against DC Louletano from the Portuguese THIRD division.

Note these clubs are on a par with Avenue. So don’t think we are the only ones to ease into a season.

 

At the moment we are scheduled to have played 6 by the start of the season, maybe 7 if there's a match behind closed doors on Tuesday as has been mentioned above.

I don't remember anyone complaining about only playing 6 matches in 2016/17 or 2012/13 and those seasons didn't turn out too bad and I must have missed the total meltdown for 2014/15 when we only played 5 times.

If the number of friendlies means so much to anyone that you're going to get upset about it consider this, the average number of friendlies we've played over the last 8 years is about 6.5 per summer which is excellent news because you are guaranteed to be able to either get angry about playing too little football and not being prepared or playing too much football and risking injuries or burnout depending on whether we play an extra match on Tuesday or not.