The Voice - Match preview Hartlepool United vs Bradford City Saturday 20 August @ 1:00pm

Me neither.

 

I parked at the shopping centre in the centre and mixed freely with the Hartlepool fans before and after the game, not feeling threatened at all.

Good luck to them for the rest of the season, much rather Hartlepool stay in this league than some of the more tinpot side around.

 

Havent had time to post since the weekend but i attended the game on Saturday and I thought 3-1 flattered us in the end but I dont remember Lewis having anything to do in the game.
Harratt changed the game. Within a minute of coming on he had his head down running through their defence and had an assist. He has shown far more than Oliver so far and I really hope Hughes thinks about playing him and Cook together from the start in the future.
I feel for Angol. He isnt a left winger and he looks uncomortable there for me. When he came inside you could see his quality. He was getting some right stick from the fans but for me Gillead (not sure he made a pass all game) and Ridehalgh were as poor.
I thought Halliday was solid at RB and Platt and Crichlow look very assured.
It was a great win and I thought the atmosphere was excellent. The police had everything under control and for me it was the perfect away day.

 

I think Ridehalgh was up against a good winger. Hastie is on loan from Rangers and looked good.

 

Agree with most of this except the score line flattering us. As you literally said our keeper had nothing to do, and we scored 3 well worked goals. Not sure how that works tbh?

 

I can see both sides of the coin. It felt that the result was always in doubt without us being under lots of pressure at any stage.

 

Isn’t a result always in doubt though unless you hammer a team? I don’t see how that makes a score line flattering. Man City when they beat QPR in the last minute, the score was very much in doubt there but they dominated the game and got a deserved win and won the league so I don’t see how it’s connected. We scored 3, they scored 1 I don’t see how that was a lucky score line. Have we lost that score people would say we are crap and got what we deserved.

 

I understand what you are saying. It just never felt comfortable until the 92nd minute.
As MH said, probably not a lot of difference in performance between Hartlepool & Colchester but we scored the goals this time.

 

I agree about the performance, does that mean the score line flattered Colchester?

 

Possibly. MH thought we deserved to win.
I thought we were worth a point, although Colchester did hit the bar and Lewis made an excellent save.

 

Sorry, but this is complete tosh. Angol's designated man was the fullback, as you would expect. Ridehalgh was marking (or rather, not marking) the wide man, their number 7 - Jake Hastie. He had got sucked inside and left Hastie unmarked in acres of space on the right wing. That was blatantly obvious watching it live in the ground, and I commented in the match thread, straight afterwards, that Ridehalgh's defending for their goal was awful.

I've since viewed the highlights. Angol was tracking back and watching the fullback and Ridehalgh should have been marking the winger. When he realised that he'd left the winger unmarked, he ambled out of the box at a slow jog when he should have been sprinting out to rectify his positional error. By the time he got anywhere near Hastie it was far too late to prevent the cross.

The first job of a left back is to mark/close down/challenge/stop crosses from their right winger. Ridehalgh didn't do that.

I realise that Angol is this season's designated scapegoat, and it's true that he had a poor game until he was switched inside in the second half. But blaming him for Ridehalgh's failure to do his basic job properly is absurd.

 

We didn't deserve to lose but tbf we didn't do enough to warrant 3 points

 

Don't rate Angol but Ridehalgh was 100% at fault for the goal. If a fullback doesn't stop the cross he isn't doing his job.

 

Ridehalgh's basic job is to do his best for the team. Expecting him to always to be in the right position every time is absurd. Looking at the highlights carefully you see Crichlow coming back from upfield and Ridehalgh in CB position - intelligently and unselfishly covering for his team mate. As you say the ball is played out to the winger in acres. Angol could have perhaps recognised that Ridehalgh was out of position and come a bit deeper but decides to stick to his brief of watching the FB. Even when he realises that he is the nearest man he hesitates and belatedly decides to offer a challenge. Simply saying the winger crossed it in so its Ridehalphs fault is ridiculous.

 

100%? When he didn't stop the cross he should have legged it across the pitch and marked the guy in acres at the far post or maybe grabbed a goalie shirt and some gloves and tipped it round the post.

 

The ball has come 40 yards to the right back position. I couldn't care less if it was Jesus Christ himself that was nominated to mark the lad, Halliday, as the right back has to spot the danger and do much better.

 

You can blame any number of guys for the goal we conceded.

Just like last season, when none of the goals were entirely down to Richard O'Donnell

 

Yes! Finally Jon, I agree, it was O'Donnell's fault. Hopeless goalie. We say it every year.

 

He also said that Hartlepool had nothing to hurt us