Match Thread Home V Bolton Sat 6th March. 3pm kick off.

Crankshaft (sic) was quilty of this a couple of times in the game on Tuesday. Probably as a result of his well discussed over exuberance. But others have been guilty of this in recent matches. It's an area where we need to tighten up. If I was an attacking player for the opposition and I saw the ref give a couple of these in a game then I'd be dropping like a sack spuds to move the play up into our box

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/14233619/bradford-city-league-two-callum-cooke/

Apologies if this has been posted already. Good read from a quality tabloid

Good job both Cook & Cooke are good footballers, they'd never win any beauty contests .

 

Don't shoot the messenger Dave. I'm only quoting what WOAP said.
But, having said that, there is some sense to it. Obviously it's better to win the ball cleanly and clear it, if possible, and (responding to @NorthernMonkey ) not to be diving in unnecessarily when the forward is going nowhere, as Crankshaw did several times.
But we've seen, ad nauseum, how often in the past we've been caught on the break or simply allowed players to waltz through our midfield and score or set up a colleague to score. At present we have Paudie, Canavan and AOC who can deal with crosses and a keeper who is good under the high ball. And we always pack the box so that there are many bodies in the way to block shots. Despite conceding plenty of free kicks we've only had five shots on target against us in our last five games.
So the theory is, I guess, that it's much harder to score from a free kick into a packed box against a defence that has set itself and is well drilled, than to score from open play when defenders may be done for pace, caught out of position etc. So better to concede the free kick and organise than allow a threatening run to develop further. If that is a deliberate policy then, so far, it seems to be working.

 

Can't get into this flagging Doy

Sorry Ulysses but I can't buy into this slagging Doyle off. It didn't work out for him or us but he certainly didn't fail through not putting hard work in. When he started playing for us even I could tell that we weren't using him properly, he's not a centre forward/target man, I could tell that even before I watched his goals on YouTube at Oldham playing for Richie Wellens who is the only manager to get the best out of him by playing to his strengths.
Doyle didn't like the ball coming to him in the air , Danny Rowe doesn't either.
Doyle was playing in a poor side, badly coached not playing to his strengths. He would have loved to have been banging goals in for us in front of our big noisy crowds.

 

This, with knobs on.

 

Sorry if it came across like that Steve, I posted what I though with regards fouling players around the edge of the box and I can't see any reason to change my mind, even accepting the theory behind it, we saw the outcome of Cranshaw's attempt to stop players, Trueman says his booking was one of the reasons for his substitution.
Crankshaw was carded after 22 minutes I said at the time the referee was very patient with his first two challenges the third correctly deserved a yellow, none were bad challenges that could have caused injury, just a typical forwards challenge.

 

At least one of the fouls was debatable but for some reason it has become an issue on here the whole team have been guilty of poor tackles and “taking one for the team” and as I pointed out earlier Crankshaw is a winger not a full back

 

Disagree I said the referee was very patient at the time and Cranshaw needs to stop making silly challenges and low and behold his third challenge got him booked, thank goodness he wasn't in a situation where he needed to make another tackle or we could have been down to 10 me before half time.
Him being a winger should have no bearing on tackling an opposition player, maybe Paudie should have gone across and said come on ref he's a winger you should know they cant tackle.

 

don't tell em your name Pike!

 

Quality and tabloid. In the same breath?

 

quality tabloid & SUN in the same breath!

 

For some reason my winking and laughing emojis were omitted from my post. Damn.

 

Using that logic we would have no one left that as far as I am aware was his first booking for us it stood out because we don’t usually find forwards getting back that much and putting a shift in at the back in order to get a booking

 

We'll have to disagree, both me and the referee obviously saw his first two challenges as fouls he was not prepared to allow a third without recompense, hence his yellow.

 

Best of luck tomorrow. View on the Cambridge Utd forum I'm on is that you and Bolton are the teams to watch for making a charge for promotion, not just in terms of results but also consistency and how you're winning. It will be a fascinating game and, as I've said loads of times before, really want Bradford to be promoted this year. Hope to see a Bradford win registered by 4.55pm tomorrow as I've just suffered another 90 mins of iplayer agony. Not sure now where we will be ....it's the hope that kills as they say!

 

We've been in a similar situation to yourselves in the past up there right until the last few games then teams we were expected to put to the sword come and beat us, that's why the game means so much to us fans, it's a way of life not just something we turn up to watch on a Saturday.

 

Sure. But I don't think Crankshaw's fouls were what WOAP were referring to. He was diving in unnecessarily from behind on players who were facing the touchline and going nowhere. That's obviously daft. The idea of incurring the free kick and then getting organised to defend it only applies where an attacker has momentum and is danger of creating a goalscoring opportunity.

 

If it helps resolve your discussion we have been garbage on set pieces all season.

 

Good!