10th of October games

[Si Robin]

Yems is going to be in trouble here. In the post match interview he basically called Kettle incompetent. I can see an FA book flying towards him already.

I've just seen his interview - it's one of the funniest things I've seen. Apparently we have 30-40 odd players - which is a new one on me. And how dare we have a couple of experienced players (we'll ignore the 19 year old in goal). His comments on Kettle are brilliant though. He doesn't basically call Kettle incompetent, he uses the actual words.

He also seems to have a massive issue with Kettle knowing some of our player's names.

 

[Casey]

I've just seen his interview - it's one of the funniest things I've seen. Apparently we have 30-40 odd players - which is a new one on me. And how dare we have a couple of experienced players (we'll ignore the 19 year old in goal). His comments on Kettle are brilliant though. He doesn't basically call Kettle incompetent, he uses the actual words.

He also seems to have a massive issue with Kettle knowing some of our player's names.

His interviews are becoming infamous. He definetly gets a bee in his bonnet when things go wrong and he gets very grumpy when he is not asked the questions he wants to answer but overall I actually prefer someone who doesn't just say the usual blandishments.

As for experience. How dare you have more experience than 35 year old Tony Craig and 41 year old Dannie Bulman. He lost the plot there.

Casey

 

[F!RTHY]

Uneasy feel ahead of tonight’s game against Harrogate. Almost feels like a must win fixture.

 

[chipmunx]

What we did was hold you at arms-length whilst down to ten men for 85 minutes. Only Josh Kay really bothered us (though every team can get at us down that flank because our right backs are all awful).

Shame Hardcastle didn’t get sent off. Long season ahead for you boys.

I'm not that worried - we had 7 points from the 1st 9 games last season and look for that ended. We were without our 2 first choice centre forwards and 3 of our 1st 4 choice Centre Halves. Of those missing 5 players 4 will be back within a fortnight.

 

[valefan16]

Uneasy feel ahead of tonight’s game against Harrogate. Almost feels like a must win fixture.

They are extremely fit and physical, very much like Stevenage under Westley when they first came up, bit of quality in there too. They impressed me more than anyone else we have faced so far.

 

[AdamStag]

I like that him being disciplined and regimented is being levied as the main criticism now the fans are growing impatient. These were the qualities wanted in the initial appointment.

I'm not yet ready to ditch 5-3-2. It's the only formation we have the personnel to play. It's an issue of coaching the formation rather than anything that's wrong with the formation.

I read on Stagsnet that we should try 4-4-2. I'm not convinced Gordon is good enough or that I would trust any one of the back three in a two. I wouldn't try any formation that starts with four at the back. We would leak even more goals.

I don’t think it’s the main criticism, sadly there are many at present. My views aren’t “emotional” either.

it’s sad that we’re not flexible to really play 442,

 

[Vanni]

What's happening at Port Vale then? Shirley it's got nowt to do with injuries as I thought they had two teams this season, so there goes that particular excuse

Here's what I think. Undue pressure on the squad to deliver does more harm than good. We were there ourselves back in the summer of 2016, when the p word was on everybody's mind and look where it got us. Nowhere.

 

[kieran_vale]

What's happening at Port Vale then? Shirley it's got nowt to do with injuries as I thought they had two teams this season, so there goes that particular excuse

Here's what I think. Undue pressure on the squad to deliver does more harm than good. We were there ourselves back in the summer of 2016, when the p word was on everybody's mind and look where it got us. Nowhere.

Maybe an element of that, last season though when we played teams who were struggling we often failed to beat them so maybe they are struggling with expectations but it’s not really new.

Would also say opposition managers will have spent more time preparing for us than they probably would have had to before. Morecambe and Carlisle clearly set up very well and executed their plans spot on. Our manager if he has a weakness is often slow to react to what other teams are doing and will just plough ahead with plan A.

 

[hellogregory]

What was Morecambe’s plan against you? Similar to ours?

 

[kieran_vale]

What was Morecambe’s plan against you? Similar to ours?

Not really as it happens, Morecambe was really just let us have the ball in our own half and stop us getting crosses in. They identified stopping Joyce as a lot of our play goes through him and it worked.

Obviously against Carlisle that wasn’t an issue as for reasons unknown Joyce wasn’t in the team. You did to us what we have done to teams at our best by pressing and without Joyce we were constantly giving it away and allowing you to break. Two differing strategies but both of which we flat out didn’t adapt to.

Edit - Just to add I’m not saying we would have definitely won against yourselves if he had played. Carlisle were excellent and sometimes people should remember the opposition are allowed to be good.

 

[F!RTHY]

Lights, camera, action ...

 

[hellogregory]

Yeah I was surprised and pleased Joyce didn’t play, particularly with Furman not fit. As I said previously some of our midfielders are talented but they are young and often a bit naive and I think Joyce would have quite possibly schooled them.

 

[LS Bantam]

I share the nervousness above given our terrible record against new league sides. McCall’s gone attacking but there’s not much balance to the side, hopefully though there’s enough in there for a couple tonight - biased 3-1 win.

 

[valefan16]

I think it’s a few factors, the positive is defensively we’ve been very good, joint best in the league with only 2 conceded and one of them was a penalty so that’s promising but we haven’t found the balance and our attack has been poor since the Exeter victory.

We are better against the better teams as a rule based on last season because we are stronger with our high pressing system against teams, our record against the top half last season was outstanding, the bottom half less so and would guess that’s largely down to the way sides set up against us, if you try and play we will generally be good at suffocating and pressing into mistakes.

Harrogate and Morecambe set up that we couldn’t really press them as neither played it around their own half and Morecambe let us have the ball in front of their XI sat deep. Carlisle pressed us and we had chances in that game, more so than the previous two but it was a game that could of gone either way, if we score the penalty then I dare say we’ve have still made the change we did and been able to press them as they opened up on us. Carlisle basically did to us what we do well to other teams and with the extra man in the middle it killed what we do, we can only do a two man midfield really with Oyeleke who was out.

This season is one where we are one of the favourites so teams are setting up to counter what we do and respect us far more. Last season we went under the radar and didn’t have that as much bar against the poorer sides (and we had a poorer record against them) so this is a worry, if we don’t find a plan to counter this we will struggle more to impact the top seven picture.

Next two games will be interesting, Salford I dare say with inexperienced Scholes will come at us more I expect and assume Cambridge will look to attack and be more open against us, games we’ve thrived off last season so two huge games to get through, wouldn’t shock me if we got 4 or 6 points but either way we would need to be much better than we have been overall in terms of desire.

Injuries haven’t helped but the depth is there, Smith, Amoo, Manny are set to return which should help us but it’s a rough league, plenty of teams have been favoured and struggled even with good squads. It’s much of a muchness between many sides and probably even closer this season with the caps and COVID seeing some sides able to pull in better players than normally wouldn’t.

Think it was Dan with HMS Piss the League and it was banter which many have bitten but think most of us have been Vale fans long enough to know nothing with Port Vale FC is ever as straight forward as we hope!

 

[SVH]

Amoo been injured again? That man is made of glass.

 

[valefan16]

Amoo been injured again? That man is made of glass.

He wasn’t out much last season but was injured in pre season returned last Tuesday and pulled up after three minutes!

 

[Son of Cod]

Does anyone happen to know how many times Bradford have lost at home since October 2019? I don't think it's been mentioned by Sky yet has it?

 

[F!RTHY]

Shocking this!

 

[valefan16]

Does anyone happen to know how many times Bradford have lost at home since October 2019? I don't think it's been mentioned by Sky yet has it?

Wonder who it was against

 

[valefan16]

Harrogate have impressed again. Pretty much how they played against us. A decent outfit

 

[Stringy]

Harrogate have impressed again. Pretty much how they played against us. A decent outfit

They're much better than us!

 

[valefan16]

They're much better than us!

They might shock people, caught us by surprise, maybe not individually one of the better sides but as a unit very good. As I said earlier in the thread probably the most impressive opponent we faced.

 

[LS Bantam]

No shape at all, two 9’s, two 10’s, no width, worrying that this is what we have to work with for the season.

 

[Stringy]

They might shock people, caught us by surprise, maybe not individually one of the better sides but as a unit very good. As I said earlier in the thread probably the most impressive opponent we faced.

Yep they seem to have good energy and enjoy running around. It's good to see.

 

[pontoonlew]

On this showing I feel like it’s us that should be aggrieved we didn’t get the chance to play Bradford last week

 

[Son of Cod]

Shite defending that. Who left their man? Sutton?

The great trio of Clarke, Donaldson and Novak that F-I-R-T-H-Y said was going to tear up the division have been very flat tonight.

 

[F!RTHY]

Worst we’ve played so far this season, but that is primarily down to Harrogate and how they’re set up.

Not good enough.

 

[F!RTHY]

Shite defending that. Who left their man? Sutton?

The great trio of Clarke, Donaldson and Novak that F-I-R-T-H-Y said was going to tear up the division have been very flat tonight.

Yeah, don’t recall ever posting that. If I did, it’s clearly gone right over your head.

 

[Son of Cod]

FULL TIME HERE AT VALLEY PARADE and the result means that Bradford are now officially second smallest professional football club in Yorkshire.

 

[LS Bantam]

That was woeful, I couldn’t tell you the last time we were as bad as that, credit a great Harrogate performance but that was awful.