The Voice - Match preview Most liked posts in thread: Morecambe vs Bradford City Saturday 19th August 2023 3:00pm

What a wasted afternoon, I'm not usually one for knee jerk reactions but if Hughes walked tonight I honestly wouldn't lose any sleep.

 

If he mentioned that he's really scraping the barrel. They only had a few players left after they had to let a load go due budget restraints after dropping a division. That was a team cobbled together in the last few weeks with the lowest budget in the entire league. You were outplayed Hughes because you wanted to go 3 at the back with wingbacks but you and Gent decided not to purchase players capable of doing it. You need a quick defender who can the ball out of the three, we lost Crichlow and you replaced him with oil tanker stuck in reverse gear. We needed wing backs, you bought one and played him at centre back pre season, we finally bought a left wing back 4 games into the season after you dropped Ridehalgh and you hung Gilly out to dry. You've thrown Ciaran Kelly in at the deep end with no arm bands. You persist with an ageing captain whose legs have simply gone. In your favour your two best players are badly out of form but Cooky is again feeding off an empty dinner table bar the couple of chances at Stockport.
This is your doing Mark. No one else's. You had positives from last year yet chose to change the principle of a back four for your wing backs in order for what you saw as the solution to that elusive creativity. At least have the confidence in your own convictions and stick with the formation you are desperately trying to get to work. Don't change back to last season's default then cry the poor tale about where on earth that performance had come from.
Because Mark, that ranks in my top ten of woeful performances and believe me I've seen some classics over the years.
That ice is starting to crack Mark, you need to act fast before you fall under it.

 

Hughes: 'its difficult to fathom where that performance came from'.

No. No its not.

 

Well it's pretty obvious. Succinctly summed up when Smallwood lost the ball and subsequently decided that it wasn't worth trying to get it back.
How on earth can you have someone like that leading the rest of your players?

 

We had such hopes when MH was appointed, possibly hero worship due to his previous history as a striker at top clubs. Now we are faced with a squad of players who have lost confidence, don’t seem to know how to play whatever system they are told to play; this has resulted in the chaos we saw yesterday. We rallied for about 20 minutes when Hughes made the changes, but it couldn’t hide the mess we are in. What is worse is that I have no confidence that MH can rebuild confidence and build a team.

None of us were satisfied with last years efforts despite being in the playoffs, we invested enough in the players for auto’s. There has been lots of posts about recruitment and our failure to bring enough quality into our squad. Smallwood is a failure, he has had the odd good match, but mediocre is his normal operandi. If you were to sum our whole season it was only mediocre. Yes I could go through all of them but I won’t bore you. Here is the question for Rupp, Sparks and the rest of the board, you were watching like the rest of us, why in all honesty were you not more assertive in making sure our Season Ticket money was better spent this year? If the player we brought in are good enough then it must be the training/lack thereof or general management of the team that is at fault. If MH cannot inspire a squad lacking in confidence now then we can’t mess about he must be replaced. However, I think we need a football director who takes charge of the football side of our club. Divide the CEO role Ryan to continue and we recruit immediately a good man/woman to take charge of everything football related. Look around but don’t take too long and see how other clubs operate under a FD.

Unless MH orchestrates a miraculous change, then I think we are set for a truly miserable season. We have been supporting this club more years than we can remember, but despite have a season ticket I will physically not watch more of what happened yesterday, at least I can turn the TV/Radio off. It still affects our household when we lose, but yesterday I honestly don’t think I have seen my husband so angry and upset. Obviously he never wants to lose, but the manner in which we lost yesterday was just awful. He appears ok today but getting him to his seat next week might be more of a mission.

 

I'll be honest, my appetite for watching Bradford city is really waining. It's not that I'm after a positive result every week but I am after a positive display and some rembrance of entertainment

 

The criticism of our fans is a nonsense. The biggest home and away following week after week, despite a turgid and ineffective playing style that continues to get served up. Fans don't crave mistakes, they crave a bit of excitement and intensity to our games. They want to see a bit of action. Parky understood perfectly what connected our fan base to the team. The likes of Adams and Hughes, simply don't.

For the garbage we continually get served up, the mixture of disinterest and incompetence at the very top of the club, our fans are a marvel for what they put up with and the commitment they continue to show. Look at where the problems really are. It's a much more uncomfortable truth.

 

If Hughes goes at any point this season, which there’s a good possibility then Sparks needs to be asked serious questions of. We go through managers at the same rate as Rahic. It’s his key job at the club, football clubs will make money naturally if they have success on the pitch so I’m not interested in hearing about our latest sponsorship deals.

This is why you need an owner that has an interest and passion in football, there’s just no accountability.

 

Outclassed and outfought by mighty Morecambe.

Disgusting and embarrassing in equal measure.

 

The interviewer should have asked him if Tyler Smith looked capable of emulating Jake Young's two goals and two assists, that Jake produced for Swindon today. Or whether Ryan East ever performed as badly as Richie Smallwood did today, on the few occasions he was given the chance at City. Or whether he has any intention of giving Osusina an opportunity, as he struggles to solve his defensive problems by continually shuffling the pack.

 

I have no idea why the fat man has been elevated to this magical status with City fans.

Pretty embarrassing.

This is the guy that quit Mansfield to go work in China.

Who then failed at Peterborough.

Who then failed at Gillingham.

He's a slightly above average lower league dinosaur.

 

I've just posted this in the other thread but I'll post it here too, as it relates to achievement of getting in the playoffs. If you take out the first 2 games he had in charge when he arrived, the points per game average for the remainder of that season and last, are identical. We qualified for the playoffs in spite of Hughes, not because of him. It was down to the individual excellence of Cook. I've had a quick look, and over the last 5 years the top scorer in this league has always been promoted, and has generally won the league. Its because they're usually succeeding within a framework that's succeeding too. Hughes had the gift of the best goalscorer in the league but we failed because Hughes couldn't put the other pieces of the jigsaw into place. Whispers that the players think he's arrogant and I've heard the same from elsewhere too, and there's a touch of it in his interviews. I'm done with him.

 

Don’t really understand the stick he gets on here, he may have one absolute stinker in 10 but that’s still far less than most of the squad. Behind only Cook and Lewis last season in terms of consistency for me and now he’s lost his place to a kid who he’s had to replace mid way through the game twice? Already. Far worse right backs around, put it this way he could be involved in a promotion starting 11, he’s far from being the issue.

 

We need to be dropping Smallwood. Shite!

 

Yep.

Hughes, today, has humiliated this club.

If he goes, he goes.

But Sparks has presided over multiple failures already.

I have no faith in him.

 

Wow. What was Smallwood doing for the second? Inexcusable that.

 

That second goal was 100% Smallwoods fault. Poor and then stood and let him run away from him for a free shot! Playing well 2nd half until then!

 

feck off Smallwood, gives up the ball and does feck all in tracking the runner for the goal.

Captain, my arse

 

Lewis
Halliday Platt Stubbs Ridehlagh
McDonald Smallwood
Odour Pattison Smith
Cook

Our best team by a distance, with what we've got available. Pattison will genuinley support Cook, and both Odour and Smith look mobile enough to give us a pacy threat and provide support to Cook too.

Its probably too obvious and sensible for Hughes though.

 

Why?

It's a fact.

20 managers in 20 years.

Only Bowyer, Stuart, Parkinson, and Todd managed more games prior to Hughes coming in.

It might be humiliating to admit, but he's bang on the money.

It's even more humiliating that some want it to continue in that manner.