The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Crewe Alexandra Saturday 27 August @ 3:00pm

We lack pace in the team to play with a slow build up.

We are crying out for a CM with a bit of pace.

 

Oliver put in fantastic cross, one of which he has been begging for himself this season.

Disappointing afternoon really should be able to do better against teams like that, no disrespect to crewe. We never really got going and their keeper had bugger all to do which is criminal.

I thought East did well in midfield, got into positions for little triangles and tried to make runs beyond. Looks like there may be a player there somewhere.

Bit controversial here, so tin hat time, I think Smallwood for all of how simple he makes things look, I wish he'd speed things up a bit. He plays like we have all the time in the world, and never ups the pace. We need better from him, especially from dead balls and that chance in the box were he scuffed a box instead of thrashing it towards goal

 

It was dull today very dull ............ cannot fathom why he continues to pick Angol ????? Has he done anything of note this season to keep playing him ?????
Everything today about us was poor our slow build our poor crossing in a nutshell very very poor ............ let’s hope it’s a one off because if it ain’t then sadly midtable here we come

 

Hard to know where to start after that. First of all it was a complete bore of a game from start to finish. Nothing happened, no goalmouth action, no excitement, no entertainment, nothing.
Then there was how we set up. You couldn't argue with the back five and East coming in for Gilliead was justifiable. But then the problems start. Mark Hughes has clearly decided he wants to play 4-2-3-1 this year so you would hope that we'd have recruited accordingly. To play this system you need a no. 10, two wide players who can both provide crosses and also come in to support, and a target man who can hold the ball up and bring everyone else into play. And yet look what we get. We have one no.10 and he's injured. So someone else has to fill in until he returns. We need two wide players and the only fit ones we've got are Chapman and Banks. We need a player to hold the ball up and the only one we've got is Angol. Despite his excellent recent form, that player isn't Cook, or Oliver whose signing becomes more strange by the week. So we have to pick and mix and what we get is a dog's breakfast where three out of the four players up front are not playing in their natural position. We have no no. 10 so Chapman is moved there. We then need a wide left player so Angol is moved there. And Cook is asked to play a role he's never been comfortable in. So we have three out of four of our attacking players uncomfortable with what they've been asked to do. And, surprise surprise, we are completely toothless, and the only bright light in our attack is the only player who's happy playing where he is, Banks.
So that's scrapped at half-time. We then go 4-4-2 but we now haven't the players to play that either because Chapman has gone off (I'm guessing he probably shouldn't have started) and that leaves us with only one wide player in Banks. Young has come on to replace Angol (just how many games do we think it will take before the penny drops with MH that Angol can no longer play wide?) but he's hopeless too because he isn't a wide player. Harratt comes on as well but soon the whole structure has disintegrated and players are seemingly running around looking for somewhere to play. The late addition of Sutton and Oliver just confuses the issue even further and a thoroughly forgettable game peters out into nothing. I'm beginning to seriously question the planning that's gone into this season's recruitment. The encouraging signs from last week have evaporated today.

In the midst of a chaotic set up there were some very poor performances.
Ridehalgh, Smallwood, Angol and Chapman were truly awful.
Halliday, Crichlow ( a couple of excellent tackles excepted), East, and Cook were pretty dreadful. Platt was ok , Banks good first half, and Lewis excellent. Of the subs Young was useless, Harratt anonymous and Sutton and Oliver too late to rate.
Listening to MH on the radio going home was instructive too. He said that three teams had now come to defend for a point and we need to learn how to break them down. Well, who'd have thought that?

 

I get the anxiety, from about 15 minutes in we lost ideas - although we got it back for the last 20.

However, we need to understand that L2 promotions and indeed L1, are never won or lost in August. You only have to take a look at where Bristol Rovers were in January, the nearly team of Mansfield in October or Bolton at Christmas the season before.

We appear to only concede when we make errors, i.e. letting in less than a goal a game is entirely feasible. I'm sure if that happens we'll end up with enough points to achieve our goal. Mind you already I'm wondering if it's going to be a 16/17 where we draw too many games for automatic.

Let's keep our chins up and look at things in perspective. We've just played a team that rarely looked like scoring, but who'd won 60% of their first first five fixtures.

 

Very harsh that most of those players were better than you described. But the overall effectiveness was zero

 

Agree about Oliver. I thought he looked far better than Cook when he came on

 

Totally agree with the so many on here ,slow, predictable, boring and dissapointing today, but come on we're only 6 games in, give the the team time to gel/improve, as that's our best approach from here imo. Coming down hard and fast on managers/players has got us nowhere in recent history. Lets move on and get behind the boys next game

 

I agree with a lot of you say, but I find your 'poor player' group a bit OTT. Mind you I've heard others having a go at Ridehalgh - but let's remember it was him, in the first half, not Banks, getting more good balls into the box. Everyone around me was praising him. But of course, as an Adams signing then some fans have no patience. Hilarious, some think Foulds is the answer ( suggest they look back at some his performances against good teams last season).

Ridehalgh is part of the solution - not a problem.

No problems with Smallwood, who is clearly getting judged because we think, given his Championship experience, he should be able to control a game perfectly - and if he doesn't have a 100% pass completion ratio then he's crap. His problem is that his midfield partner, today, East, isn't up to it. That meant he had to do a lot of defensive mopping up and then teams realise that if they crowd him out and Ridehalgh (as Crewe did in the second half) we have little verve from elsewhere. Of course a fit Chapman and Walker solve that problem.

Talking of Chapman, I had my doubts in the earlier games but he was fine in the first half. Several runs he made, resulted in him been up against three Crewe players, because the likes of Angol (who never should have started or be starting) were nowhere near to be seen in terms of support.

I think fans are going OTT about Banks. Yes, he has the skills, but this brutal physical L2 footie and he still needs to get a bit more cute with his positioning. Smallwood fizzed a great ball for him to run on to, but because he expected the ball to come to him, it was easily intercepted. But clearly he has something and let's face it , if the hits the net as opposed to the crossbar we wouldn't all be moaning at 21:35 on a Saturday night!!

 

100% on the money. We forget just what a great player he is at this level

 

Do we know what is wrong with Walker, and when he's due back? I really can't recall hearing anything about his injury.

 

I'd agree with this 100% and I think the way it's looking we may be more affective away from home this season, and perhaps we may have to accept that we are going to draw alot of games at home this season as teams turn up with a shut up shop game plan.

 

Knee injury. Will be out for a long time yet

 

At the team, the manager, the ref or the opposition?

 

As I say I saw him today hobbling with crutches he looks Miles away

 

If true then a few fkn clueless idiots imo

 

By 10 games in we’ll have played Steve Evans Stevenage team at home and I can’t remember ever beating one of his many teams, also very tough away games at Mansfield and Tranmere. Will be hard to exceed more than 13/14 points from first 10 games with those fixtures to come.

 

I thought first half today we weren't far off getting it right. I understand why Hughes felt the need to change and it's a brave manager who tries that with 45 minutes to go. But the change negated the full control we had first half, going 4-4-2 without the relevant players means we still couldn't get Andy Cook into the game. For the plus side we have a shape (barring that second half) that looks solid for the main. I might be in the minority but I don't think we're a million miles off being a very good side. Just lacking a vital ingredient at times.

 

Possibly. Two decent championship sides have come to Valley Parade in the cup and been very open against us with some higher level football and for the main we've had a go at both and scored in both games. But we ain't gonna see that against dour league 2 sides and it's gonna be a case of being patient as fans with the build up play. Hard to break down teams who come with a defensive mindset.

 

I've been as critical as anyone regarding our team in recent history, but I do believe we now finally are equipped to get out of the khazi, we hugely miss Walker but if we can hang in there around the play off positions I've no doubt we can come good when it matters.