The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Mansfield Town vs Bradford City Saturday 2nd September 2023 3:00pm

A very solid point from City today. We're the first team to take anything away from Mansfield AND stop them from scoring - they had bagged 8 in 3 competitive games at home and won all 3 prior to today.

Still plenty for us to work on, but we were missing a number of key players in Pattison, Cook and McDonald and still have the likes of Chapman and Oliver out. Many attacking options which are currently not at our disposal.

However, we've gone to yet another tough place and taken something home with us. A mediocre start perhaps, but gradually improving, not to mention we've played 6 out of 8 competitive matches away from home so far. Definitely not a disaster as some make out. Yes, performances need to improve and people are rightly challenging formations, style of play and general tempo. But as I've said before, we need a degree of patience and allow the team to bed in, whilst also acknowledging we have been missing key attacking players - particularly today - which has certainly hindered us.

 

It's the mentality that's a problem. Is it a bad point? No. But the fact that some would have 'snatched your arm off for a point' in a game where the opposition were down to the bare bones, reflects our attitude in most games under Hughes, and teams with that mentality rarely go up. Case in point, the playoff tie with Carlisle. Go 1-0 up then spend 160 mins plus extra time trying to defend. Many home games were the same. Unambitious, uninspiring and unentertaining.

 

2 years in, we should have a squad, system and mindset of being on the front foot and aiming to take 3 points, in every game we play. There should be a purpose and attitude to attack teams, create chances and score goals, that we're just not seeing. I'm 100% with @Rogered Tart on this. Being so meek in our approach play simply because we were without Cook, is piss poor. But its telling, partly because we set up that way most weeks anyway, and largely because we're seeing very clearly that without Cook doing something individually, Hughes system offers nothing. We finished in the playoffs last season because of Cook and despite Hughes (not because of him). And I can't agree @Offcomedun, we had no purpose at all yesterday, even Hughes has admitted as much. It was completely limp. Its clear as day what Hughes approach is, and it doesn't work. And it's awful to watch, there's no excuse for it. Stylistically and result wise we should be doing (and expecting) much better. This will be another wasted season.

 

The pleasure's all mine. Here's some facts for you to choke on your sour grapes

1. 6 matches played. Just 2 at home
2. Gone to Stockport and Mansfield in the league plus Wrexham in the cup and unbeaten. Let's be honest all three will be in the Top 8.
3. We've now played 12 matches this year, against our 'key' rivals (to me that's the Top 8 clubs who didn't go up last year, plus Wrexham, Gillingham, MK Dons and perhaps Accrington) and only lost one (of course that was the vital one at Carlisle )

I don't think creating is the major issue, for instance we had more shots on target than Mansfield - but taking these chances is (frankly we should have beaten Stockport and even had decent chances against the two teams who beat us) However, we're going to have to be patient as two of our good goal scoring players are unavailable and I wouldn't be surprised if they were out for the rest of the month.

Promotions are never won or lost in September. The team is solid enough. Now Hughes needs to spend the week and restructure us, as we simply will need to play differently whilst Cooky is out (which in fairness we did against Wrexham)

Good point today. But yes, 4 goals in 6 is not going to get us promotion. Only conceding a goal a game after the games we have - is promotion form however. We need to get the other side of the pitch correct.

Yours faithfully

Deputy Chief Happy Clapper

 

This is a hard fought, competitive, pretty standard game of L2 football. In case it's escaped your attention, we are in L2 so we, like Mansfield, have L2 ability players. Maybe you should go and support a PL team if you want to watch better standard players.

 

These comments on here are why this club won’t drive forward
When did city fans become content with this zero entertainment football.
We turn up in great numbers at home and away and happy clap the dire performances
Make no wonder the club, manager etc think they’re doing ok

Hughes incoming transfers for the last 2 seasons have been awful and yes any manager coming in would struggle to pick a winning team

No player at Mansfield was above a 5 ( yes I was there ). If this is the settlement of our fans then it’s a sad state of affairs when we are supposed to have leading budget to challenge top 3.

if the likes of Osedabe having his best game for us is the opinions flying around then we have no hope.

This is as bad or if not worse than the Docherty era

 

Disagree we do not represent the 17,000 who attend home games most weeks, they /we go down to support Bradford City our team, yes we get annoyed when we don't get the results we believe we should but its not a new situation we have suddenly found ourselves in.
I don't have a problem with fans having a different opinion but some comments are OTT in my opinion this for one "Totally concur some peoples perspective on here I finding worrying. Any old shit they lap up, blind support in my opinion is dangerous" don't you just love it when its the fans fault maybe the likes of me, @Park bantam , @Kevin1954, @wetherbywhaler, @The Original EB and many more to blame for putting up with it for so long hence my reply.

We are Bradford City a club who's history has seen the majority of our time in the bottom two divisions, you alway hope this season is Bradford City's season, and when we do get a bit of success its so much more enjoyable.
I took my grandson the first season Stuart came back he was seven years old at the time, I didn't know what sort of reaction I'd get but he stuck with it and is now Bradford City mad, he has his moments as we all do having a go, he actually said I'm finished with away days after the Morecambe debacle, my phone goes yesterday and up pops a picture from the terracing at Mansfield yes he went without asking me, once you have Claret & Amber in your blood it's not like Covid there are no injections for getting immunity against getting the Bradford City bug .

 

What's really weird is that we haven't been negative. Unless you call not launching constant route1 hoofs negative. We've played some decent football, as have Mansfield. I'm enjoying the game.

 

This ain't one week Border, it's a good 18 months of never really having the balls to go out and really nail an opposition side.

 

Got to feel sorry for Wilson. Signed on a 3 year deal and not even on the bench now these 2 loan signings are in the building.

 

Game over :
Sorry to upset those who think a point at Mansfield isn't a goode result but Mansfield isn't an easy place to win.

 

Good point today - Mansfield had won their previous three at home. I'm clapping happily. Thank You.

 

Not sure where I fit really. These threads descend into 'were doing great' vs 'were shit'. I'm bang in the middle.

We look like an upper mid table side, we're starting to look solid, we don't look great going forward. We're not going to have a crisis season but I've no confidence we are going up. Our performances so far are indicative of a 10th place finish. I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that we will finish any higher or lower than that. We're just alright.

 

The whole reason we hit the playoffs last season was Andy Cook having the season of his life. It wasn't even like we created a lot for him, his goal to chances record was ridiculously high and half a dozen quality individual goals. There was no way he would hit those heights again and without his goals we again look toothless. His safety first approach ultimately failed us last season, we can't let it happen again.

 

Everyone saying it's the best we've played yet we carried no goal threat and got a point.
Last season we dominated that Mansfield team home and away, even winning with ten men.
I think we've regressed badly.

 

There used to be a time when nobody even bothered producing league tables until at least ten matches into the season, because so much can change after the early games when all teams are getting used to new players/formations/managers etc. Promotion is decided at the season end, not after six matches.

Of course everybody would like to win every game but, in the real world, that just doesn't happen. So getting in a hissy fit because we haven't beaten one of the promotion favourites at their place, with our biggest goal threats missing, is just silly. Losing at Crawley was definitely one to be mad about. Getting a battling draw at Mansfield, who've won their last three home games and will likely win most of their others, not so much.

 

Consistently good performances will get you promoted eventually and probably a lot quicker than being poor in most games and nicking points here and there.

I'd say we've been reasonably poor in every game bar Stockport so far and in those 4 games we've yeilded 6 points which imo is about right so anyone believing we can nick another 25ish wins with these performances is more than likely going to be disappointed.

At some point, if we're to achieve our aims, the performances simply have to improve and probably improve significantly.

 

You should know these two by now Steve a couple of WUMS.

 

Good away point. Anyone who says otherwise is deluded IMHO.

 

It needed to be addressed in January and again in the summer. Hughes hasn't, and seems unable.