Match Thread Home vs Oldham Saturday 14th August

OK, how many ariel duels did their centre forward win against Canavan ?

 

Which gives space for his partner to score, and that worked very well.

 

Indeed so. But Jim frequently got got hammered on C&B for similar performances.

 

None, as far as I can remember. Which is one of the reasons they were utterly toothless, despite having 65% possession.
The fact that their forwards were abysmal has no bearing on what was, in my view, one of Cook's poorer performances in a City shirt. But, as I've said several times, he'll have plenty of much better days, I'm sure.

 

Nil?

 

And if the centre back had not clobbered him from behind on numerous occasions (and the foul ignored by the referee) then he would have won even more!

 

Later on in his City career he definitely did, some of it over the top but some of it no doubt brought out of frustration of him not being at the peek of his powers anymore and not forming any sort of prolific strike partnership with anyone since Wells. Don’t remember to many criticisms of him during 12/13 when he helped Wells score a bucket load and chipped in himself. Had he gone to Millwall in January 2015 or whenever it was he’d have barely received any criticism as most of it was in the last 18 months or so.

 

He needs to get cuter at winning fouls. Donaldson or Stead would have won numerous free kicks against that guy.

 

Agreed. But even when he was past his best, and playing in L1, he had more effective days than Cook did on Saturday that he would get hammered for.

 

He just needs to watch Grealish. Arms and legs flailing at the sense of any contact whatsoever. Just watch him, which I did yesterday. Refs are finally sussing him, and soon Kane when he’s gone to moneybags.

Letting the games flow has been much better viewing .

 

I agree first half there was a push on Gilliead that would have been a stone wall penalty last season, but it’s one of them everyone moans at as a neutral or as an opposing fan. Hopefully we’re finally getting back to a more physical sport, obviously punish dangerous tackles but most of the time it’s just the ref blowing for every little touch. I’ll be very happy if less fouls are given throughout the season it’s a far better spectacle.

 

100% agree.
Watched a fair bit of the prem football over the weekend and it was so refreshing to see the refs not blowing for what everybody can see are not fouls.They’ve obviously been told to ref in a way that keeps the game flowing. I just hope it’s not a “start of the season” thing and they stick to it for the rest of the season.Hope they don’t succumb to the obvious criticism they’ll get from the big managers if a decision goes against them and go back to the old way of reffing.Hopefully players will soon realise that they can’t just keep throwing themselves to the ground anymore and should lead to a better viewing experience.

 

Just some stats on this that I have got off whoscored.com
Keillor-Dunn won 1 aerial duel out of 4 (25%), compared with Cook won 11 aerial duels out of 26 (42%)
In defence Canavan won 2 of 3 (67%) and O'Connor won 1 of 2 (50%) compared with Oldham's back 3, Clarke won 5 of 9 (56%), Piergianni won 11 of 15 (60%) and Hart won 2 of 4 (50%).
A big thing I did notice is that they doubled up on Cook with their number 4 Cisse often sitting in front of Cook to sandwich him and he won 5 of 9 duels (56%) which i can see becoming a common trend for opposition as we look to use the long pass as our out ball.

 

Yes I noticed particularly in the second half him(their number 4) doing that. Unfortunately I don’t remember any of our players taking up the vacant space he left in doing so.

 

Yeah but Cook won't go 40 games without scoring. That's the difference.

 

On the basis it’s even handed of course.

 

Yes and no Offy. My criticism was based around his mobility , nothing else, which sadly affected his game big style during his last season. There is, controversially , only one person to blame and that is probably Parky.
From memory , it was said many times, he was sent out with pain killing injections , because it soon became evident that McBurnie was being sacrificed in that position , leaving Parky no option but to play Jim.

I’m working from memory and some of this could be incorrect, but that’s how I saw it at the time.

I wouldn’t blame Jim in that respect because he played on valiantly, at the cost of his game and probably future mobility?

 

Yes my observations completely. Sadly they, as you say, have a history of letting these initiatives peter out, so it’s as you were by November !

 

Here you are @Park bantam : https://bantamtalk.com/index.php?threads/bradford-city-oldham-full-90-minutes-the-report.5326/

 

That's if you enjoy wrestling and a game of shirt pulling , if the ref gave a foul the first time it happened and warned the defender if it happens again he's in the book it would stop it.