Most liked posts in thread: What HAS gone wrong??

It's not baffling at all, we were very lucky that everything Cook touched turned to gold and Lewis was breathtaking. All we're seeing now is them 2 players returning to a level that was expected. The standard of players in the league last season all round was poor which meant those with the better managers were more successful. This season there's better players and better teams and we didn't improve the team anywhere on the pitch. In fact not replacing Banks and Crichlow with similar standard players has meant we have regressed. We gave new contracts to a less than average Gilliead and a terrible Ridehalgh. We have filled our squad with players that will be non league players or retired next season

Gent, Hughes, the scouts and Sparks are all to blame.

 

To me the difference is,

1. Harry Lewis is low on confidence and is a shadow of himself from last season.
2. Cook hasn't been able to carry the team on his back again, gaining us points out of nothing.
3. We don't have a dynamic player like Wright or Banks.
4. After about 18 months in charge from Hughes, this team doesn't have an identity or style. It's just defensive minded turgid garbage.

 

I'll be honest - I think we were massively lucky last season. Other than a small handful of performances, the majority of games were on a par with what we have this season (i.e. tight, cagey affairs with few chances at either end). The data supports this - I believe all the metrics pointed to us being a firmly mid-table side. Luckily for us we had Cook having the season of his life, where almost every shot of his went in, and Lewis performing well. This season we have neither of these, and are performing largely to type.

I feel like the "success" of reaching the playoffs (which should be a minimum expectation really) meant that we didn't focus on the issues that were clear last season - we were defensively solid then, but lacked energy and movement in midfield and creativity in the final third.

 

Hughes ruined everything by trying to implement five at the back - the players just didn’t take to it.

we wasted pre-season trying to force it as Hughes didn’t know his best side. With scattergun recruitment since, he still has no idea now, and we’re 10 games in.

all he needed was to upgrade the CDMs with someone a bit livelier and try get more pace in the side, and we could have progressed.

i know we lost Wright, Banks and Critchlow, but to lose them and rip up the set up……too much change.

who is the best RB option?
Who is the best LB option?
who is the best CB pairing?
Which two CDMs compliment each other best?
Where does Walker best fit into this set up?
Who are the best supporting wide players to play behind Cook?

10 games in, that’s most of the team that have positions with unanswered questions. Lewis and Cook are auto starters. But after that, well……

 

Good thread. What has gone wrong? OK for me…

1. An indifferent summer transfer window. Ash Taylor appears to have had a reasonable early career and recent spell at Kilmarnock, but ultimately turned into a bit of a journeyman and apparently awful at Walsall and Northampton. Now 33 - a strange signing.

Clarke Oduor and Tyler Smith I can understand - players with age on their side and a reasonable amount of experience.

Kevin McDonald, I can kind of understand too - lots of experience and shows to me that Hughes wanted him to challenge Smallwood for the “experienced midfielder” spot.

Oyegoke seemed to be signed as a right sided centre half for the failed 3 at the back, or a right back in a back 4. Halliday has hit form and we’ve dropped the back 3 so he’s been put into an unfamiliar midfield position. Sparks said Oyegoke was identified by the recruitment team a year ago. Seems like a player we don’t actually need!

Tomkinson - can’t even get in the match day squad! Very inexperienced. Is he the type of player we need? I guess we signed him because Hughes realised Taylor isn’t up to the mark, so why sign Taylor?

Lewis Richards and Adam Lewis - permanent signings for the future, hopefully they will develop, but ultimately very inexperienced at the current time. They’re both being eased in slowly.

Afoka - very raw and seems like an odd signing.
Tulloch a bit more experienced and has pace which we’ve lacked at times.

Pattison - probably our best signing on paper and on the grass.

Ultimately we have a squad of 30 (including the youth team players that came through) and it seems very bloated.

2. Young and Odusina - players signed on long term deals who have been outcast after barely playing. No one knows the true backstory but perhaps it can’t help with morale.

3. Formation. To be fair to Hughes he said before the off that we weren’t necessarily going to stick to a back 3, and he’s realised it’s not working and changed it. However time has been wasted. But for those who wanted it changing (me included), the back 4 hasn’t yielded a positive change. As good as we were at Newport, Walsall was awful and we can’t blame a back 3 for that. He should have realised in pre season that the back 3 was not going to work, there was enough evidence of it before the actual competitive season started!

4. Injuries. Lay-offs for Cook and Pattison haven’t helped with early momentum.

5. Play off hangover. It’s clearly there, but teams have failed in the playoffs before and gone on to have a good season the year after. It’s down to Hughes to get positivity in the squad.

6. Pre-season. Seemed a bit strange to me. Boiling hot in Spain and it probably wasn’t the best pre season tour we’ve had. Getafe game (not the intended opposition) in 40C heat a complete waste of time. Rochdale were the only opposition who were closely matched, the rest either being Championship or in the lower reaches of non-league.

7. Fans. We have no divine right to be in the top 3 and we’ve got to earn it. However performances haven’t exactly given us anything to shout about. I think we can all agree that if we lose then at least go down fighting, but the fight isn’t there. We appeared to have a weak core and weak mentality last year and it’s no better now and arguably worse. But talk of protests and tennis balls on the pitch seems a bit ridiculous to me.

I started this post thinking I’d make reasonable arguments for sticking with Hughes but even I’m talking myself out of it. The thing that annoys me is that Hughes is so experienced as a player and manager - he MUST know what to do and command respect from the dressing room. Also, I’m generally of the view that we need consistency - chopping and changing managers is no good and we are getting a reputation. I said when Hughes joined that if he can’t get us up then we all may as well give up and go home.

In conclusion, Hughes needs to grab these next two games by the scruff of the neck and show he’s up for the fight. For me, he needs 6 points minimum to save himself, and not only that, the players need to put in good, purposeful performances, full of passion and endeavour and with a little luck. Otherwise i think he’ll go and the cycle starts all over again. I don’t think I can stomach another season ticket renewal for 2024/25 if we fail this year.

 

Those "nice" sponsorship deals will very soon Dry Up unless things improve on the pitch
We are a football club not an advertising sales company we sell the brand Bradford City which is devaluing match by match
It's on the pitch where it matters most sponsors will either support or withdraw depending success on the pitch

 

Try getting that sort of clause in a contract in any other industry.
They’d laugh you out of the interview room.

I do feel your last sentence is the more relevant though.

“OMG it’s Mark Hughes”
“He’s played at the highest level all over Europe”
“He’s been managed by one of the most successful managers ever”
“But he’s never managed in the arse end of league football?”

“That doesn’t matter.We’ll sell some season tickets just on the name alone”
“I’ll give em some guff about not accepting mediocrity”

“They love my sound bites”

 

Hughes was worth a go, and got us into the play offs.

No matter what people say, he isn't even in the top ten worst managers of the 21st Century.

That said, this season has been a big disappointment so far, so if he goes, he goes.

 

If you take out penalties, we have scored 1 goal from set pieces this season. Which has us 22nd in the table as Newport and Swindon are both on 0 set piece goals for the season. Defensively, we are 4th in the table conceding 5 of our 12 goals so far this season from set pieces. Harrogate, Stockport & Tranmere are joint top of the tree conceding 6 from set pieces. Again, that is without penalties, if you add that we have conceded 6 from 12 from dead ball plays.

Last season, we were 8th in the list of top scorers from set pieces with 15 goals from corners or FKs, Newport were top with 24 goals. Defensively, we were the 4th worse team conceding 20 goals from set pieces. Only Rochdale (27), Wimbledon (23) & Crawley (22) conceded more goals that us from FKs/Corners.

The alarming stat of it all though... Of the 43 goals we conceded in L2 last season, only 19 were from open play (20 FKs/C, 3 pens & 1 OG) which gave us the highest percentage of goals conceded outside of open play, not just in the division but the entire EFL. We were the only team in the EFL last season to concede more goals from dead balls than open play, Millwall were the only other team to come close to us with a bang on even 24 from open play and 24 from FKs/Corners.

 

Things won’t improve until things change at the top. That simple!

Our squad lack quality and signings have been poor.

On the pitch we just look lost. Watch Walker play to highlight this.

 

That short passage pretty much sums up Hughes tenure at City. A team that looks unmotivated and uncomfortable in the way it's been asked to play.

 

It surely cant just fall on deaf ears?.... Right?

Our 19 goals conceded in open play last season was the best in the EFL, Burnley and Ipswich (two promoted clubs) were the next best at 20. Which makes it all the more frustrating. We aren't getting cut open by teams, we aren't getting played off the park. It's basic issues, it's marking a man, it's tracking a runner, it's having a good shape to counter from. Something kids get drilled into them, but our pros don't have a set up that helps.

Every team we play leave 1 quick lad on the half way line when they have a defensive corner, which means City have to usually leave 2 players back, meaning the defending team have the man advantage in and around the box. Every single corner we defend, not only are all 11 in our box, they are usually all around the 6 yard box. Even if we win the first header, it's an open invitation for the opposition to have another strike because there's no physical way we can get to that second ball from our defensive shape. How can every fan in the seats see this, but the staff cant?

 

Talking of Ash Taylor. Is he injured, or just so far down the pecking order. We never hear anything about him.

Banks and Crichlow have been massive losses to our team in my opinion.

Impressed with the Pattison signing, and that's it this summer.

We seem to have gone for quantity over quality, again, despite what Sparks was telling us about a leaner looking squad.

Hughes out

 

The signings, up post someone posted quantity over quality = Stephen Gent.

The change of tactics from the manager. The team from last season needed quality players in certain positions to move forward but we changed team formation from 4 at the back to 3 centre backs with wing backs and it confused our players. = Mark Hughes.

The big part of our team from last season, players like lewis and Cook (except for Newport) seem to be out of form or the teams confidence is low, maybe the players have lost confidence in the manager? =Again Mark Hughes.

A win at Tranmere and over Swindon might just call my post Bullsh!t but what I have seen so far from the team is a backward step from last season.

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/not-the-top-20-podcast/id1112915286?i=1000629918720

1:20:35

these lads know their stuff and give an unbiased view of life at city under hughes.

 

Whilst we continue with this abhorrent zonal marking system, we will continue to concede from set pieces, and the opposition know it!!

 

There are fans out there who think we were just unlucky not to make the top three, too, and cited bad refereeing decisions (I hate that excuse...fair enough for one game, but over the course of a full season, I can't have it) as a reason for us missing out on the top three.

I think the only reason we missed out on the top three was because of Hughes and his reluctance to 'go for it' more.

Cook's outstanding season papered over the cracks for Hughes, for what was a season where we ultimately failed to meet our objectives. It was an awful division and any 'decent' team and manager would have got us in the top three last season.

For Hughes, whose entire managerial career was spent in the PL, prior to us, at clubs where floating around six or seventh would have been considered a good season, sixth wasn't good enough here.

Solid, steady and predictable isn't the approach we need. The same is true now, given we've given ourselves a handicap with the terrible start. Thankfully the board took action sooner than many imagined they would, and the division still looks congested. But fingers crossed our next boss is a risk taker and someone who quickly realises the way out of this division, with this squad, is to do everything to get the best out of Cook. Let's get more bloody balls sent into the box and up to him and get the pacey lads running around him and off him. Let's cause some carnage.

 

We have training sessions?

 

Hodges was reputed to be a set piece specialist. We're not very good at taking them either. How many goals have we scored from free kicks/corners? We aren't very good at defending them too.