Match Thread Most liked posts in thread: Swindon Town (H) @ 15:00 5th March

Right as it looks like we aren't going to get into the play off's I will pay my dues with regards the two £10 bets I had with @Tight1-0Victory I've sent him proof of payment to both The Darby Rimmer Foundation and the Bradford Burns Unit.

 

Hughes arguably got as much out of our lot today as I could expect any manager to do. Hughes can't do anything about what is a woeful defensive unit and upfront where had the same problems when creating chances under Adams.
I'm just appreciative of seeing a damn good game of football where we played possession football, restricting a good footballing side of the ball.

 

I just want to say as well a massive credit to the fans. Easily the best atmosphere we’ve seen this season.

And a special shoutout to Derek Adams. He’s in contention for one of the most deluded men in english football. How can you have the arrogance to say that we would struggle to find a better manager an to get a better performance out of these players?

We may of lost today but that performance was better than 95% of the games under his leadership. The exceptions being Stevenage at home and possibly Mansfield Away.

Any other day of the week we would of won that game. It just wasn’t meant to be. The signs of progression are clear to see. onwards an upwards

 

'Tweaks'?. Needs a whole new defence mate

 

Probably not the correct thread but we were discussing the keeper position on here so just wanted to comment that Bass was excellent today.

Helped the defence out multiple times by taking a high ball and relieving the pressure.

Excellent response to last weeks mistake and all you can ask for from a player in terms of mentality.

 

Keeper did a world class save before the pen and then acts like an idiot.

Over all excellent performance and the display from the lads was miles better than anything under useless Adams. We lack fire power but I believe Hughes will improve us on that front.

 

I didn’t like the result but I enjoyed the match. Which tbh I haven’t done for some considerable time. MH has certainly rolled up his sleeves. In a week he made our midfield click which I thought was impossible. Check. Defence needs more work, it will take time. Strike force if you can call it that requires additions. He needs to go shopping in the out of contract players.

The sheer fact that we cannot take even half our chances puts our defence under pressure. We should have been . 2/3 goals the good by half time.

As I say it was great to watch, and it feels like we are at least a football team now, which we haven’t been for most of the season. Onwards and Upwards.

 

Forgot to give him credit in earlier posts, but thought Gillead was excellent today. was everywhere.

Gareth Evans too, was busting a gut, which was even more impressive given he’d been frozen out by a previous manager he never saw eye to eye with.

in one week Hughes has seen Daly and Robinson are not worthy of starts and that Evans is a better footballer than Sutton.

We played some good stuff today. Cooke was very good too.

 

One massive refreshing point from Saturday was the positivity from Hughes and absolutely no mention of Bass' mistake at the end costing us the game. If that were Deluded Dez, he would have been thrown under the bus axle and been reversed back over for good measure.

 

United fan in peace here, we all hate L***s scum right?!!

As a Bradford lad I'm really pumped to see Hughesy in charge, he was my childhood hero as my username attests to. Best moment of my young life that CWC win!

Not been to a Bradford match in years and I'm bringing my lad this afternoon, hoping to get the chance to meet Hughesy and get an autograph for him. What's my best chance? Before or after the game, and do you have a specific entrance like at Old Trafford where it would be best for us wait?

Obviously I can't join in with any chants referencing City but it might be me starting the Hughesy ones!!

 

Played well today. Lavery, Evans and Cooke all improved the side.

took my daughter to the toilet and missed the pen. Payne looks fat. Sods law he scored after being booed as he came on.

we could have been 3-0 up at HT. Deserved a point at least. No concerns from me, we’ll ship out the deadwood at the first opportunity.

Hughes has spotted the better footballers already with his changes. ROD will be back in next game now……

 

Enjoyed that today !

 

It was the same when people wanted Hornby in. All they could come up with after a while was that Hornbys distribution was allegedly better.

That's because all the quantifiable stats were edging in ROD's favour but it didn't meet the narrative they were trying to push for months that it was all ROD's fault.

Well, we're on our second replacement for ROD now and we're still conceding the same types of goals. Weird eh?

 

Reeves...?

 

Agreed…Evans, Gilly and Cooke with Watt close behind were the best on show.

 

Overall, promising performance. expected result. you miss as many chances we do in any league an you will get punished sooner or later

An observation I made of our defence today

Paudie an Songo. Are good players….individually. Il elaborate. Paudie is good in the air, commands the defence to some extent (something is better than nothing considering the situation we are in)

Songo, throws his body on the line. Has found himself in positions to make goal line clearances numerous times this season

However, They are not compatible as a defensive partnership. They do not complement one another at all. There are certain aspects of the game that both lack, pace an ball carrying being examples

Foulds was as poor i’ve seen from him today. Don’t know whether the Mansfield game has had a knock on effect or what, but he was poor overall. Swindon targeted his side in the first half. He was struggling to make simple passes. Was failing to read moments where he needed to make overlapping runs. Was getting caught out of position too many times and was leaving Paudie, and his lack of pace, heavily exposed on the counter

Hendrie went into his shell after the first 15 minutes. Was not getting close to his man. Was backing out of challenges. The first goal came from his flank an it was down to nobody, notably him and Songo, not closing the Swindon Left Winger down

As for Bass. People are saying that O’Donnell should be brought back into the team. Il be perfectly blunt about this, Those of you who think this way are naive an have short memory. OD is abysmal. Il rejog a few memories. OD never comes off his line. He always gets beat at his near post. He is heavily sceptical to shots from outside the box. And the most important factor, he inspires his defence with 0 confidence. Bare in mind our downturn in form last year coincided with OD being brought back into the team. Our defence is a walking shit show right now, Adding OD to the mix is throwing fuel to the fire

and im not gonna sit here an act like Bass is the second coming of Jordon Pickford. The challenge he made at the end was downright naive. But my main issue with that scenario that unfolded was the incompetence of the entire team in the last 5 mins. Swindon has half a dozen corners an free kicks close to our box. The ball goes in, gets kicked or knocked away, an our team is so bloody slow to come out and press. so the ball ends up going back into our box. time and time again. and all it took was for one ball to get reflected an for the entire team to be switched off to the danger. And before anyone mentions fatigue, Robinson, Sutton an Daly were all brought on and non of them came rushing out to any second balls in those last 5

Bass may of come out naively, but the defence shouldn’t of allowed the swindon player to get into that position with the ball in the first place. As for that save he made, it was a world class one in my opinion that OD would of had no chance in saving. Bass aint great, but he’s the best keeper we have on the books at this moment in time

A special shout out to Evans. I think he was fantastic. Kept that midfield very composed an took his goal well. Got stuck into some challenges an ran his socks off. Cooke was great. His dribbling abilities are very impressive. Its a shame he’s not one to favour shooting when the chance presents itself. I believe his best position may be an 8 rather than behind the striker

Lavery also played well. Its nice to see a player up front who can read the game well, or better at least than whoever else we have available in that position

 

He clicked on like by mistake. Easily done. He unliked it straight away. Posted an explanation on Twitter saying he would never disrespect the club in this way.

I believe him.

 

As good as Cooke was today. I would of loved to see what Walker could do in a team set up like this. Playing football on the ground, creating chances. Plenty of chances for players to shoot from range; they just didn’t have it in their locker. Walker clearly does

 

Ha, interesting game yesterday. Firstly I got quite a bit of grief for wearing my United jacket which I wasn't expecting! Some of it wasn't friendly banter either!

I've never been to a league 2 game before so I wasn't sure what to expect but it was actually fairly entertaining. I thought you guys that had the better of the game but Swindon look like they had a bit more quality if that makes sense? I wasn't surprised that they nicked the win.

For me your number 29 and number 17 were your best players and I thought they always looked like they might make something happen. It was a good job your midfield and forwards were on it because your defence looked all over the shop. Your number 4 and left back in particular, thankfully you were good at the odd last ditch effort otherwise you could have conceded a few.

I also thought your number 18 had a shocker in midfield, after 8 minutes I looked at the time on the scoreboard because I'd already noticed him giving the ball away 4 times and he didn't get much better.

I was really surprised by the behaviour of some of your fans, I was in the JCT600 Family Stand and there were lots of teenage lads around just pissing about, clearly no interest in the game. Smoking/vaping, spitting and also videoing themselves trying to break the seats although none of them had the actual balls to go through with it. If that's the norm I'm a bit surprised some of your older fans haven't sorted them out, I know that's what happened at United when there's been kids behaving like that.

My lads 12 I've often thought he might end up wanting to come and watch you guys with his mates once they start going themselves but I'd be a bit uneasy about it after that.

I did wait around a bit at the end see if there's any chance of meeting Hughesy. I wasn't really sure where to wait so that suggestion given before about and going to your training ground seems like a better idea, maybe I'll take the lad down in the holidays.