The Voice - Match preview Leyton Orient vs Bradford City Saturday 3rd December 2022 @ 12:30pm

Time for MH to flex his connections within the top flight. Get some young hungry kids in on loan who want to impress.

 

That’s the last thing we need imo. We need someone used to playing at this level and who has the ability to boss midfield. We are weak as piss there. Getting some kid from the PL or Championship who has a handful of games under his belt will be no better than Gillead.
Unfortunately in my opinion the type of player we need isnt going to be unavailable in January

 

My worry too. We're not that far off being a pretty decent side, possibly just one new player in centre of the park and Critchlow back. But without that new player and Critchlow we have been shown up in the last two games as being deficient in those areas. Get that right and i think playoffs are there for the taking.

 

I can accept being beaten by better teams, but against both Northampton and Orient the score could have been 5 or 6. To continue with the same midfield and formation is negligent in my opinion. Why not put a 3 in midfield and go 4-3-3? If we could see improvement in the current set up, then it might be worth sticking with but we’ve got worse and the players look like they’ve no confidence in it. Our problem is, nobody at the club is big enough to question or challenge Hughes. I wonder if they’ll do another Q & A where supporters can ask why we persist with this set up, when it isn’t working at home and why he’s only using a fraction of the squad at his disposal.

 

What worries me, among lots of other things, is that this side are what used to be called 'top of the ground ' players. Once the heavy grounds have come they've gone. Today was a good example. Great for the first twenty minutes or so but then the energy goes and they just fade away. We make the same mistake year after year by signing players who are fine at the beginning and end of the season but can't hack it in the middle. We've got several players who are quite pacy but the ground at this time of the year reduces their effectiveness and the teams full of stronger players prevail. This is by no means our only issue but it's an important one and there's not much we can do about it umless we sign a raft of grafters in January.

 

Back Home great turn out by City Fans . We had a good 10 / 15 mins then fell apart. A lot criticised the Ref.. but really end of the day it's our performance no midfield. Hughes need to step up and sort it .

 

You and remote control ( RC ) are like children . I’m taking my ball home… That’s how you sound !

If you can’t stand losing you know the answer!

 

We need to try another formation because this ain’t working. We need 3-4 players in Jan to achieve it . We need to be ruthless to succeed.

 

Three big issues for me.
1. We cannot continue with two sitting midfielders who don't create and don't link the defence and attacking players together. At least one of the two deeper midfielders has to be either a Doyle type quarterback who pings accurate long passes without dallying on the ball, or a McCall/Jones type box to box runner who can break lines. With Smallwood and Gilliead together everything is so slow, predicable and easy to defend. By the time the ball reaches any of our attackers the opposition defence is back in numbers and difficult to break down.

2. Cook is appalling at holding the ball up. Time after time today the ball just bounced off him or was poked away by the CB behind him. We all know that his first touch is often poor when back to goal, but how can such a big bloke be so terrible at shielding the ball? Given his goal record he is currently undroppable but, as others have commented, if he doesn't score then he offers next to nothing. Playing a lone striker system needs that player to be able to a) hold the ball and b) accurately lay it off to the three attacking midfielders behind him. But Cooky, despite his size, is a penalty box goalscorer, not the target man he's being played as, and simply isn't capable of doing either of those things on a consistent basis. So we continue to cough up possession and our attacking moves fizzle out.

3. In a 4231 system, the attacking three midfielders have to be scoring regularly. Ours aren't. That is partly due to 1 & 2 above. But the fact that Chapman can't hit a barn door from two paces doesn't help either. We badly need Walker fully match fit, both to help link play better and to provide a goal threat from midfield.

 

If we can't find a player any better than Gillead during the transfer window then we might aswell give up.

The bloke is literally, the worst regular first teamer we've had since Will Atkinson and is absolutely on a par with famous names such as Darren Morgan, Ian Banks and Mick Duxbury.

For anyone that disagrees, just name me one thing he does well that makes a positive contribution to the team.

I'd wait but I'm really not expecting an answer.

 

I think the 4-2-3-1 style doesn't (or shouldn't) require hold up play from the centre forward.

Asking Wellens, what use was Doyle at hold up? He was beyond useless - his job was to be a centre forward.

My point is, if we're playing out from the back to the point we're getting double figures passing sequences along the back four, we should be able to find our midfield FIVE in a position to attack themselves.

I get that when we're under the cosh, we need something from the centre forward - but really, the onus should be on the other players getting the ball into the area for Cook, as opposed to Cook holding the ball up for the other attacking midfielders. That should really be Plan B.

 

Not read through this entire thread but listened to us today while grafting away in my garden in a rare nice December day. I'm normally fuming and annoyed after any City defeat but today seemed different, for some reason I'm not too fussed, and I think I'm putting it down to reality has kicked today to how far we are away from the top of the league. But once you get over that and you realise we're a play-off side at best, it's seems not so bad compared to recent history.
We're miles off top end of this league obviously but let's stay calm and no knee jerk reactions, anywhere in the top 7 gives us a shout, and the only 2 teams so far to give us a spanking as it stands will be automatics not playoffs.

 

And also forgot to mention above, but Leyton Orient are clear leaders at the top of the league for a reason. We move on and concentrate on trying to finish in the playoffs, as that would be a huge improvement on recent seasons.

 

I'll answer! I can't agree with that as Darren Morgan is the absolute worst player I've ever seen in a City shirt! That said, we do need much better than AG. Hughes clearly doesnt trust East to start so we have to sort that in January.

 

Agreed but there is still a long way to go. Walker coming back and hopefully a couple of good January signings could still see us close to 3rd spot come the business end of the season. Agree though that we do need a reality check. We all want the autos but 9 months ago I feared the club was heading for non league! We have some favourable fixtures coming up so things may look a lot more positive come Christmas

 

I actually do think that the squad is good enough for promotion through the automatic route ............ it’s the arrogant manager who ain’t ........... had we actually gone after teams at home we would comfortably sat in the top 3 but this boring slow play is actually killing us off he seriously needs to have a re think because if we do start dropping points away from home then we are in big danger of missing out on the playoffs

 

I cannot see MH changing his preferred formation and style of play. He will hope we can strengthen in January and push on in the new year.

I would be happy with playoffs, that represents a big improvement on any season since we were relegated.

If we don't achieve promotion via the playoffs, automatic would be a must for me next season, or time to look for next manager

 

Absolutely,4-2-3-1 is played by many teams who score plenty of goals but the three need to be consistent goal scorers. We played it last season with the 3 being Gilliead,Callum Cooke and sometimes Evans so no wonder we struggled to score. If Vernam was fit he played there and that improved things. Now it’s not much better as Chapman and co don’t score many. Indeed if it wasn’t for Andy Cooks remarkable purple patch we’d be mid table now.

 

we sit 6 points off the play offs with 3 out of our next four games coming up against teams in poor form ........... it’s time for Hughes to actually go after these teams instead of pissing around ........... we could actually be in an automatic spot come after the next four games but that’s down to one man and I just got a feeling that we won’t get the points we should be getting because of his arrogant approach seriously if we fail this season then it’s all on Hughes and him alone ..........we can single out players but he continues to play them .........., the Oliver signing is seriously baffling ........ why would you sign a player if he doesn’t fit into the system ?????? ............... seriously I’m sick to death of it now ............... clubs come down with millions of pounds worth of debt and they still manage to get out of this league ............year upon year the poor side that trudge down there are fed complete crap and they think they will continue to go ????? Sorry but I know a lot of people who will happily Fook it off to actually enjoy there Saturdays rather than waste there time in a bunch of bullshit merchants