The Voice - Match preview #24: Blackpool vs Bradford City Sunday 4th January 2026 3:00pm

Funnily enough Alexander said we are a simplistic team in his interview yesterday, I don’t think he’ll be too insulted.

 

Didn’t Clough once say Football is a “simple game, complicated by idiots”.

simple but winning football suits me fine.

 

The second balls is so so important. It's been a massive feature this season. I'd love a stat on how successful we are at picking up 'loose balls' but I suppose it would be hard to measure what constitutes 'loose' but we seem to be first to everything. Power and Metcalfe are exceptional at it. A combination of energy and anticipation.

 

This^^^^^^ The same idiots who continually mess with the rules making a simple game complex.

 

There are alot of lower league managers that change things when they are working - just to try and satisfy their own egos.

They dont like default settings, got to show their worth by tinkering or over complicating things. Hopkin did that during a great little run he put together and it ended up with him getting sacked.

 

Both of City's media team were getting abused and things thrown at them by the Blackpool fans.
Got moved for their own safety.
Caveman behaviour.

 

Great day out yesterday. Much, much better performance. No point in repeating what's already been said. Replace Kav with Bobby and I think that's pretty close to our strongest XI.

Makes the Mansfield selection all the more baffling - unless GA thought that would be the hardest match and so took a punt by resting a few and hoping to nick a point?

Either way, 9 from 12 is a great return. Soon I'll have to start taking us seriously as a promotion prospect.

 

Pure speculation, but maybe the higher-ups thought that with us doing well, reinforcements might not be needed. GA put out a side that he wanted to prove they're good enough to be at the club and deserve a shirt, and they let him down? I am not saying he purposely played a weaker side, but I think a mixture of resting a few players (due to fixture congestion) and giving players a chance to prove their worth was the thinking, and unfortunately, it backfired.

However, I did mention earlier in the thread that maybe the Mansfield game has resulted in the performance at Blackpool, where we looked back to how we played earlier in the season. We may look back at the Mansfield game in May as something that pushed us on and make Rupp & co see that we need to upgrade the squad again.

 

He plays like a man one sandwich short of a picnic more like.

 

Accoring to whoscored.com we've scored 10 set-play goals this season (4th best in the league) and have taken the most set-play shots in the league - becoming a key part of our game

 

He did say that in the post match interview "says we are nothing special we just do the basics and do it well" he's bang on.

 

We picked a poor side for sure. But this was a tough fixture Mansfield we’re coming off two great results as we have found out despite us doing more than well teams like Exeter and Doncaster have shown there is no easy games and we will lose more in the weeks to come

 

Looking at that highlight reel we look a very close together team. I still think we will buy someone as well. Let’s see

 

Interesting article. Hopefully the link works:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/95834438dbc62960

 

What a bunch of croc

 

Yes , but it is a fact that every football fan becomes a complete violent maniac after a couple of beers, so would trash the hotel room if their team were to lose
As you say a croc of shit

 

Feels like they've got better in recent matches. In particular, just getting that ball swinging in right into a dangerous area around the 6 yard box.