Player ratings v Rochdale

It's been a while since I've done some player ratings, but think it may be a cathartic experience and so will give my own personal opinions for each of the players who were given time on the pitch for today's game.


Bradford

• Richard O'Donnell - 10. MotM by a country mile. 2 top class saves. most passes received. Most passes distributed. Constant communication. It's hard for a keeper to project enthusiasm and passion, but he does. I give a 10 even though he conceded 2 and gave away a pen, because those were both due to the shower of sihte in front of him. I thought we would miss Doyle who had become quite a big player for us, but this lad looks like (the only) find for us.
• Kelvin Mellor - 6. showed some desire and was getting stuck in, unfortunately injured early on
• Sub: Nathaniel 'Back-Pass' Knight-Percival - 1. Looked like his mind was still on the bench most of the time.
• Anthony 'Back-Pass' O'Connor 1. So many gaps.
• Ryan 'Back-Pass' McGowan 1. Was assigned marking duties on their big guy (#5?) at the back on corners, every time was risking penalties with his hands all over him, and every time their player just ran and was 1 yard in front when the ball arrived in the box.
• Connor 'Back-Pass' Wood 2. It would have been a 1, but he provided 3 crosses that actually kept possession today (1 went for a corner, 2 for throw ins) and he got forward quite a bit. Looked clueless defending though, with most of their attacks coming down his side where he was never there...
• Lewis 'Back-Pass' O'Brien 4. Put a shift in for the full game, would have scored higher (6-7), but - that back pass!!! (it was him wasn't it?)
• Josh Wright 3. I saw him pass and tackle a couple of times, so he does exist! His best game for us.
• David Ball 6. Tried to get the game going a bit with some decent skill a couple of times, but a little anonymous for most of it,
• Sub: Alex Jones 8. Changed the game, led the line, allowed Doyle to play his natural game off a main striker. all of a sudden we looked like we might score when he was on - please get fit quickly!
• Jack Payne: 5. Worked fairly hard, but was relatively inefficient (and seemed absent too often when they broke down our left and our central midfielders had to cover constantly)
• George Miller: 3. A couple of really nice strikes early in the second half, completely overshadowed by the WOEFULL attempt at a shot when 1-1 with all the time and space you could possibly hope for. Score boosted to a 3 as he ran a lot.
• Eoin Doyle: 4. Not his best game. I truly look forward to watching him when he has a main striker to play off and he's not forced into being the target man that he never has been or ever will be.
• Sub: Kai Brunker: 4. He won a couple of throw ins by running around. not enough time on the pitch to earn a proper score.

So, writing this helped me - I'm feeling quite relaxed now. Although this tasty gin might be helping too? Always happy to hear if anyone disagrees with my scores and reasons, and feel free to post your scores, it might help you too?

 

An 8 and a 10.... seriously?​

I had Jones at 7 until I wrote about him, so bumped him up as his impact was really good, so yes.
If everyone of out players on that pitch had played as well as O'Donnell did, we would have won 6-0, so yes. 10. Those 2 saves were amazing. The amount of pressure he was under for the entire game from his own team mates inability to move the ball forwards was huge, one of the back passes was a hospital pass, yet afterwards he was still offering himself as an option - which is so much more than any of our midfield did at any point.


I could stretch to a 5 for Wood, but that would be a stretch. The free kick he played backwards to (McGowan?) which went straight back to O'Donnell (yet again!) and should have been lumped into their box at the least was some of the worst pieces of decision making I've seen. I think Hopkin agreed with me if body language afterwards is anything to go by.

I may have overscored Ball, but as he was one of the very few who actually tried to make this happen when he had the ball instead of panicking and passing it straight back to the keeper, I gave him a 6, and I'm happy to stick with that.