Wimbledon (A)

Well, pretty much anyone is a higher standard than Brunker. And I'm hoping that Akpan has much more to show. Apart from that though, I see nothing in any of our missing players to suggest they'd strengthen the side. The bench, maybe.

 

And we've little choice but to play so called "amateurs". To me, given the injuries, if Brunker doesn't play - we're probably under even more pressure as their defence has a far less physical workout

I don't think the club has a policy of employing amateurs - Kai was always going to be used an impact sub, we just had no other choice last night

 

Sattelmaeir, Raeder, Barr, Brunker, Grodowski.

Edin loves a German amateur.

 

It is amazing how far we have come. Last week I quoted that it was great to see a coach barking instructions from the touch line. Wow! Now most of us will just be glad to avoid relegation. Great! Those missing City fans are not real fans anywhere so who cares? Less queues, great!
Now we are debating how good Brunker might become and thank goodness we have him cos we have no one else. Quality!

All aboard the City express!

 

I assume Hopkin sees all his players in training everyday. Poor as Bruenker is Hopkin chose to start him and play him for 70 mins ahead of the obviously more skillful Ball. Maybe is was just for nuisance value, but it appears to have worked.

 

It worked insofar as we had two up second half and were dangerous on the counter but giving him credit is really stretching it. We won, pretty fortunately, and Bruenker happened to be on the pitch whilst that was going on. He doesn't even run or move like a footballer. It's funny to watch but it's a desperate state of affairs.

 

can we all just admit that Brunker is absolutely dreadful, there can't be any Park Bantam like stragglers that still believe hes good can there?

guys a liability. physical workout my eye, he's useless, and hinders us rather than helps.


good to get a result last night, much needed 3 points - it's a good job there's some truly awful teams in this league or we would be absolutely snookered.

 

It really didn’t.

 

Don’t get ahead of yourself Ricc, we’ve very much one of those awful teams. We just need to hope that there are 4 worse ones.

 

Even I have stopped defending Bruenker now, but every manager we have have had has played him. Look at last night. We can't say it's because we have no-one else when Ball is on the bench. Unless Hopkin is a complete idiot he played him for a reason and, no matter how fortuitously, we got a result last night

 

I watched the 90 mins on iFollow. I gave 7s and 8s in good faith as the guys showed balls and steel, something we’ve been lacking this season. I agree, it was far from a vintage performance but that’s as hard as I’ve seen the players work all season, which after a poor start was good to see for a change.

 

I’ll be honest, the main thing that’s stopping me from enjoying our football is, well, our football.

 

That’s the thing though - the Rothmans end of season book will say “Wimbledon 0-1 Bradford City”. It won’t say it was fortuitous, or Wimbledon had one cleared off the line and hit the side netting.

A clean sheet against Bristol Rovers and a point was a good step to stopping the losing run. We kept another last night and we won.

No one is saying we aren’t a poor side but can’t we just be glad that we ground out a result, no matter how “fortuitous” it was - we came back with the 3 points.

 

I agree with that. We’re a poor team so expecting good football is unrealistic. Until Hopkin has a chance - and the backing - to build a better team, grinding out points is all we’re good for. A few min crap 1-0s over the next few weeks will do just fine.

But let’s be honest, if we don’t repair this clusterf*ck, at least partly, in January, and inject some quality and entertainment then watch ticket sales absolutely nosedive for next season. And quite possibly, league 2 football will beckon.

 

Agreed. It was awful last night but 3 points by whatever means is all we can hope for right now.
Serious question for you FB . We have had our disagreements over Bruenker on several occasions in the past but even I am not seeing much in him now. But here is the serious question. Why did Hopkin, who most on here seem to agree will be a decent manager, choose to start Kai above Ball? Just wonder what people think?

 

We are improving though.

 

*Negative post shocker*

 

It's pretty obvious really - we are playing away from home against a physical side and we've lacked a target man (striker to hit a long ball to) and he's the best option at the moment if you want that type of striker.

We won, he probably won't play on Sat, we #GoAgain.

 

Well, he’s not started him before so in part, he may have been more optimistic about what to expect. He wanted a team that could match Wimbledon physically - they’re a big team. He may have believed that Kai would help defensively on set pieces and give us a physical presence up front. I don’t think that part worked at all. But the idea may have been to bring Ball on to exploit space and tired legs late in the game. I thought he did that well, though his finishing was tame.

I expect a proper target man to be high on the agenda for January.

 

Scarily, that’s true. What we’re seeing is shite, but it’s less shite than earlier in the season. Whether we improving enough, and quickly enough, remains to be seen.