The Voice - Match preview #19: Bradford City vs Reading Saturday 13th December 2025 3:00pm

I think you're under valuing the impact of his diagonals. He contributes massively to how we set up going forward.

 

How many accurate diagonals did he hit on Saturday? Not many, if any and imo doesn't hit anywhere near enough, accurately enough to excuse his often terrible defending.

Let's be fair, if Pennington is fit then he's probably not in the team so what then for "going forward"?

 

It depends what you mean by 'accurate'. I'm happy to see it used as a means to establish attacking territory. A good 3 or 4 occasions where the full back was forced into heading it out for a throw in high up the pitch. That'll do for me. At least another 3 or 4 where he picked out Wright and Halliday in space. His back pass was horrendous but honestly I can't remember many other occasions where he's put us in trouble like that. I might be wrong mind.

 

The % of them being complete it always going to low as it's a very hard skill and you have to get it perfect. However, with these types of passes the point of them it's just to get it to the wing backs it is about getting into a position where you win a throw in or you get the other players around to win the knock downs. Also it is about allowing our wing backs to get further forward which stretches their defense as they've got to stay wider.

When Pennington is back fit Wright's place in the team will be more under threat as Baldwin will be the CB and Pennington RCB. The reason in the last 1.5 games we've played Baldwin at CB and Wright RCB is because we know Baldwin at CB makes us play better. The problem in the last 1.5 games is that with Wright at RCB we've not had an out ball there as he's not very comfortable on the ball and he doesn't want to step forward to support the wing back like Touray, Pennington, Kelly and Byrne do.

 

Twice in a few weeks, he made a balls up early against Plymouth if I recall but they didn't take advantage as didn't Reading. Saying that Baldwin has done well since he's come back, seems to have coincided with us getting our form back. I think Alexander sees him as a key player for the backline with his ability to play the ball.

 

Fantastic explanation from fantasy land.

Baldwin was moved out of the middle on Saturday because he was a complete liability having the responsibility there. There's absolutely no way he's taking Wright's spot if everyone is fully fit.

 

Someone posted on here that Wright is statistically the best defender in the league this season, someone also put the same on X. He is also our on CB who has scored, no way he gets dropped when fit.

 

It is fair point about Wright and I do think he would be unlucky to be dropped but for the good of the team I do think it improves us. That being said I wouldn't take the Whoscored.com ratings too seriously, on Saturday 2 of the players mentioned for MOTM were Metcalfe and Halliday but according their ratings Metcalfe was joint worst player for us with Baldwin with Walker and Halliday the next worst. I like the website for the individual stats but I wouldn't take much notice of the overall ratings. When we get to games like Stevenage and Lincoln who will be more physical then I wouldn't be surprised if Wright came back in for his aerial presence

If we want stats then when Baldwin has started we've won 7 out of the 9 league games, if you want to include the 2 sub appearances (3 minutes against Stockport and 42 minutes against Bolton) it's 8 from 11 or 8 from 10 if you exclude Stockport. In the 10 games he's not started we have won 2. The stats for Wright are close to the reverse, when he's started we've won 5 from 12 league games, without him it's 5 wins from 7.

I'm not saying that the wins are solely down to Baldwin or Wright missing is the reason we win but I don't think it's something we can ignore.

 

seeing Bobby doing those goal post runs means hew is fit again like ....Brum away...

 

I'm not sure the one on X was Who scored, it was a guy called Nathan Evans who's usually good with his stats. I don't think Baldwin would be dropped either, it wasn't me who mentioned it.

 

Wright will always make a lot of headed clearances, as he sticks his head on just about anything. He looked great at the start of the season but had an absolute shocker against Donny and then got bullied in a few games. I'm still not 100% sure what to make of him but he's committed and brave.

Baldwin is another player who's hard to work out. Long, diagonal balls are not a problem for him; simple, ten yard passes to a teammate seem much more difficult. He's been skinned a few times in recent matches too.

Our best centre back is probably our left wing back, which either says how good Touray is - or how average/poor the rest of them are.

Hopefully I have to eat humble pie about Kelly as the season goes on; he's been decent in the past few matches. Having Tilt and Pennington back will only be good for competition but I'm not convinced that either of them is the answer.

All of which probably means that Power and Walker are better players than they seem.

 

Byrne scored a tidy goal at Stevenage.

 

I think Tyriek more of a winger than an attacking midfielder because of his goal output. It's similar to Neufville on the other side who does more wing play than scoring. Even in today's T&A Bobby refers to Tyriek as a winger.

“You watch back games and you see little gaps and you see where the ball's going. You've got to know your wingers as well.
“Thankfully, I know Ty and just hung around the back and knew where it would come in.”

 

You're right, I forgot about it on the account of it being the least CB type goal you will see! That said, unfortunately, he is nowhere near league one standard. Thankfully for whatever reason our defence has been mean recently, but you only have to look at the chance Reading got early on to see it feels more luck than skill atm. For me, we need to quality CBs (probably have to wait until the summer) at the very least.

 

I'm hoping we can get lucky in January and bring in someone like a Reece Burke if we can't secure a decent option on a permenant. There's certainly the most scope for improvement in the Centre back area.

 

The back line must be doing something right. We have had 4 consecutive clean sheets and are 3rd bottom in goals conceded so far.

 

I disagree. Our CBs, individually, are nothing special but between them, probably due to our defence coaching and overall team organisation they are making us the hardest team to beat in the division.
For me there is much greater scope for improvement in central midfield and striker positions. Virtually none of our goals are created by our CMs. A genuinely creative passing CM who would provide more assists, and a fox in the box to put them away, are the two biggest improvements we could see to this team. Imagine if we had someone like Jack Diamond alongside Power and a Salech, Keillor-Dunn or Wooton up front. I think that would make us auto promotion favourites.

 

The trouble is, part of our recent defensive solidarity has come from playing with two defensive idfielders who are protecting the back 3. Bring a CM in who is attacking and we will be more susceptible and most likely concede more. I've not researched the stats but I bet our clean sheet ratio is far less with Leigh in the team than Metcalfe alongside Power. Our defence has been helped by protection, and by teams missing big chances, such as Reading and Exeter, in our last two home games.

 

4 clean sheets in a row since Baldwin returned to the team. I think that says it all.