The Voice - Match preview #20: Leyton Orient vs Bradford City Saturday 20th December 2025 3:00pm

Patto hasn't looked dangerous at all this season. I remember a few times last year when he picked the ball up and ran at defences. He was almost unstoppable, but for some reason this season he's a shadow of himself. I don't think it's helped with the injuries and constant rotation, but he's one of certainly look to move on. Alexander certainly seems to be dismantling that North East brigade..

 

It's like reading DATM on here.
We lost OK but we played worse against Exeter and Plymouth and got the result. That's football.
Dropping this player or blaming that player isn't gonna change anything.
I know I'll get pilloried but Cook is a spent force, we need to move on from him and work with what we have until January.
We're 3rd in the league approaching the halfway mark playing a style of football that doesn't suit the target man.
Saying stuff like dropping the captain or slating the central defenders after a bad day is just depressing.
Having watched many EFL games this season there are far worse defences than ours, we had a bad day but we'll win the next 2 games and everything will be fine.

 

I tuned in just after our goal and we were all over them. I thought this was going to be a drubbing. Their pitch looked huge and we were spraying it around. What happened? As soon as they equalised, they started playing football and we started chasing shadows and hoofing it blindly. Zero composure or game management. How does it seem to be that the oppo always seem to have at least one player that we’d like to have.

 

Absolutely right on every count KK. It’s ridiculous . It does however show the level of expectation generated . Yes clearly we are all excited but we do need to be realistic at the same time . I’m not looking but I bet not one member, not one, forecast we would be third at Xmas?

Oddly enough and most welcome , once again a number of teams around us also dropped points. Fortune of course, but one makes their own luck at times?

January will be the marker of intent , or not?

 

It’s crazy, but I can’t reply to everyone of the messages or it’d take all day. 3rd loss of the season and the least in the league. And people want the captain changing, formation that’s got us a promotion and to third in the next division and about half the team changing. All after a game where we created enough clear cut chances to win 3 games and should have won comfortably. Truly bizarre. We’ve played far worse and lost (excluding the last 30 minutes, but the game should have been done with by then).

 

There is an element of merit to this, some fans seem to change their opinions on players like the changing of the weather. Have a good game and they're good enough, a bad week sees them for sale in January. My opinion of league one now i've seen pretty much every team mirrors the tightness of the division. Not one side in this division stands out, you could drop toward the relegation zone and i'd say theres nothing stopping a team in that area putting a run together and hitting the playoffs.
What has surprised me is the lack of genuine quality i see on a weekly basis from every team. I was expecting a tougher jump up to league one following promotion when in reality the step has been a lot smaller, hence why teams like us are up in there in third. Because no disrespect to us or the other teams involved, i think its quite a poor standard division football wise. I think if any team can raise their game, us included, by 5/10% then promotion is there for the taking.

 

I’ll be honest I’ve only seen the 2 minute highlights and if it wasn’t for the WuM in goal and Sarce passing it onto the post instead of an empty net we could have had three or four by half time . We win some we lose some. Thankfully only three to shout about….

 

This.

 

Take Brum and Wrexham with their “ We buy promtion” philosophy the league is pretty much on a par with last season RT? Technically and tactically it’s a small increase of a step compared to L2 . I watch a lot of L1/2 compared to say the CC and if we think L1 is straining at times some of the L2 is comparable to the Dog and Duck Sunday league. Aimless and technically drunk.

 

Totally agree with all of that. Goals change games and we should have been at least 3 up by the time they started playing in the 1st half.
We regrouped and started the 2nd half really well and should have been in front again, but gifted them a goal and never really recovered although we huffed and puffed till the end.
On another day we win that comfortably.
A natural striker would obviously be great but they cost so I think our best hope is a punt on a decent higher league loanee, but no guarantees that will work out.
We have a run of 4 very winnable fixtures so need to keep the faith.

 

Its the flip flop nature of Citys fans one grade A Twit sat behind me slagging them after 2 minutes of the Reading game ffs .............we lost a game big deal against what was always gonna be a tough away game ............would have been nice to be sat in the top 2 come Xmas ...........all i know looking ahead is that its gonna be exciting times going forward and when was the last time we went into the Xmas period thinking that ?????
I know the outcome last season worked out well but 12 months ago we got beat 3-0 at Notts county with no hope of anuthing happening so please enjoy it while we can

 

I wanted to post this. Thanks for saving me the bother. It really wasn't anything like as bad as made out.

 

To be fair Kev my lad agrees with you more than me lol, he tells me what you've just said. I'm not wanting it to come across as moan, more an observation of what i see every week. The standard of passing week in week out from most teams frustrates the hell out me, stuff like aimless clearing headers from defenders when they have time to control the ball.

 

Exactly. Some of the usual moaners on here don’t understand the game.
Since the Bolton away draw we’ve been awful but picked up 9 points. Yesterday we were very good in the first half, probably the best I’ve seen since Cardiff away yet we lost.
We’re 3rd in the league at Xmas with 2 winnable home games to come followed by 2 winnable away games. Win all 4 and I’m 100% certain we’ll be top of the league or have the chance of going top when we play Cardiff.
Chill out guys

 

On the flip side, in the three wins on the bounce we've just had, all three opposing sides had very good chances to go ahead off what was poor defending in games where you could argue there was very little between the two sides in each game. Same with yesterday, in terms of ability there is little to nothing between the two sides other than a bit of consistency.

 

I was thinking more that Carlisle with their backers would possibly be able to give him a deal that might give Andy a final pay day,

 

Agreed. Its that sort of league. Anyone can beat anyone. Plymouth looked woeful against us, yet have had a run of excellent results since. I've said previously, we are over achieving in terms of league position. With a decent window, play offs are more than achievable but regardless of where we end up, how far we've progressed as a club since the Notts County game exactly 12 months ago is nothing short of remarkable.

 

A rarity but I find myself agreeing with you totally. Had we taken our chances people would arguably be calling it the away performance of the season, or second behind Cardiff. Instead everything needs changing and all the team are crap. The obsession yesterday evening with wanting to drop Power was absolutely bizarre.

 

Max Power is and continues to be one of the 1sr names on the team sheet for me. Hes the leader we all wanted Smallwood to be but despite a good final season, that never really happened. Once again, he was the player facing the media after a defeat.

 

Not a pop at you but I don’t know why people get triggered by the usual suspects going all “woe is me” after a defeat.
It’s the same posters jumping on the bandwagon and not seeing the bigger picture.

We’ve all seen yesterday’s game lots of times previously.

There’s so little difference in this league that if you don’t take your chances you can get punished.

The 2 big chances that were squandered fell to the one player out of yesterday’s whole squad who I’m sure many fans would pick to easily finish them both 8 or 9 times out of 10.
The same player who some picked for the player of the season so far and has taken those sort of chances regularly.
Sarce will be absolutely devastated that he didn’t finish either but especially the lob over the keeper.

It’s quite simplistic to say but if we go in 2 or 3 up at HT we win comfortably.
He lobs the keeper successfully we go 2-1 up and we may go on to win or a point at least.


The Power issue is baffling.

A player who consistently plays to his maximum and is a genuine leader needs dropping after only our 3rd defeat all season.

Power,Touray,Walker and Sarce (two of who got most criticism yesterday) have to play every game if fit.
It’s that simple for me.