League 2: Bradford City v Torquay United 09/04/2011

[ferrarilover]

Coral Windows Stadium (for the love of God!)
Saturday April 9th 2011
KO: 1500.

Off we go to Bradford then, in search of three points to keep us firmly in the hunt for an oh-so-unlikely automatic promotion place. Bradford, unlike some other teams in L2, do genuinely qualify for sleeping giant status. They have 10,000 season ticket holders and the only thing keeping them in this league are the repayments on a ground, built for the Premier League, but now, despite the impressive attendances, vastly under populated come a Saturday 3pm.

GULLS NEWS.

Well, we all know the news from our point of view. The bemusing decision by the football league to punish us considerably more harshly than they have Hereford for committing the same offence in the same manner in the same match, has left us above Gillingham on goal difference alone. With any luck, the sheer injustice of this whole situation will spur on the boys to a fantastic end of season run, starting with Saturday.
Should probably mention also that the excellent Craig Stanley is missing, a blow for sure, but PB has a dozen or so options to shuffle the pack to cover, time will tell which he chooses.

CONSEQUENCES.

I ll start with our hosts, who are in the unfortunate position of not being able to move up so much as a single place with a win, but stand, with an unlikely, but possible, series of results occurring to drop as low as 20th place. For Torquay, we can go as high as fifth should we win and Accrington and Stevenage both fail to do so. Conversely, victories for Rotherham, Port Vale and Gillingham could see us as low as 10th come 1700.

HEAD TO HEAD.

Bradford wins – 21

Draws – 6

Torquay wins – 14

So, we have a losing record overall against this lot, although we don t appear to have played all that many matches against one another. Not a single cup meeting between the sides, so no anomalies there either. Sadly, despite these 41 matches being spread over exactly 50 years, our recent record against the Bantams is equally unsavoury: we have won only one of our meetings with Bradford since 1992. Fortunately, that was at Plainmoor, earlier this season, when we were already a goal up through Danny Stevens by the time Threlfall (the visitors greatest asset) was given his marching orders in the 12th minute. A Chris Zebro(w)ski goal on 66 sealed the result.
There are no real results of any great note throughout the history of this fixture, but the match at Plainmoor last season will live long in the memory of those who were there, since we were a goal up and ought to have been cruising going into second half injury time, and we somehow managed to find the time to concede twice to gift a poor Bradford side three wholly undeserved points.

FORM (LAST 6 GAMES).

Home: W L W W D L
Collated: W W D L L W

My my, isn t this a mixed bag? Bradford don t seem to be able to work out of they re any good or not. The one thing they don t do is draw 0-0, they haven t for 30 matches now. Recent results include just two wins against the better sides in the league, and a fair number of defeats, but they beat the teams around and below them, so I think it s fair to suggest that they are just about the best of the bad (for desperate want of a better phrase) teams in the division


PROBABLE LINE UP.

This is the team which beat Macclesfield 1-0 on Tuesday night.

01 McLaughlin
• 06 Oliver
• 12 Williams
• 15 Hunt
• 28 Threlfall
• 09 Evans
• 19 Worthington
• 20 Adeyemi
• 23 Syers
• 04 Flynn
• 17 Hanson (Dobie 63)
Substitutes
• 40 Pidgeley,
• 03 O'Brien,
• 14 Osborne,
• 22 Bullock,
• 10 Speight,
• 11 Dobie,
• 25 Chilaka

PLAYERS TO WATCH.

For me, it s Lenny Pidgeley, just for his name. For those who don t know, he s a goalkeeper who has been around a bit, but started life as understudy to Petr Cech at newly monied Chelsea. On a more serious note, Threlfall is their main man, a fans favourite, he is a defender who started his career at no less a club than Liverpool. Going forward, they have some familiar names, Jake Speight and Scott Dobie are their strikeforce. In terms of loanees, they have Kevin Ellison from Rotherham and Tom Adeyemi from Norwich, and if he s anything like the other Norwich loanee we have faced this season (Cody McDonald of Gillingham) he ll be a bloody nightmare to defend against.

PREDICTION

There will be goals. It remains to be seen what effect the FL decision will have on the spirit of the team.
Shall we say 2-0 TUFC.

Matt.

[bixieupnorth]

barring a late change of mind, maybe as a protest against being charged £20 for division four football, surely, so, so wrong??, i should be there taking my seat (i assume?) tomorrow

its a gorgeous day here in south yorkshire and i'm feeling lucky, £150 up on my bets this week, should've been much much more, unbelievably i had 5 accumulators that were just one result wrong, last night that dick shevchenko's sending off for doing a van persie surely prevented dynamo kiev getting the victory against boring braga, and a nice 35/1 coupon.

so i'm gonna go for a narrow 1-2 gulls victory, tomlin and jake i think?

and i got hijacked to a beer festival at half 3, cant see me getting home for a good few hours yet, maybe my appearance will be less likely than it was when i first posted, spelling still ok tho??!!

[Awayday]

Good luck to all those travelling up the green house tomorrow (Coral Windows Stadium pmsl) don't go throwing no stones.
Also if you need to get a ticket don't forget to call "Ocean Finance" before you leave.

From what is being said on the official site I don't think the team are to bothered by the points deduction, their heads are firmly on the prize money.
Bradford have a weird home record, they either win or lose, they don't seem to draw. Where as Torquay seem to have a fairly consitant win, lose or draw record. Based on current performance and mood of the camps if either team score, I can see Torquay winning, but my head is saying a boring 0-0.

[Bigman]

As well as them not having had a 0-0 in 30 games we haven't had one in 33, so a goalless draw is pretty much nailed on.

While we've only won away twice since Christmas, both were against teams beginning with B - omen or what! Also, in the whole season we've only lost two away games in which we've scored. We haven't lost in our last 6, 3 of those being away.

Bradford haven't kept a clean sheet at home in 5, but have scored in each of their last 6 (3 at home) since losing at home to Chesterfield.

I'm not sure what that's meant to tell you, cos it's given me both optimism and fear. Here's hoping for an improved performance and hopefully us edging the goals, 2-1 Gulls.

[Jeff]

Some cracking stats on the go there!

I sincerely hope we don't have a partnership on 2 from Mansell, Oastler and Lathrope in midfield tomorrow. For starters I don't think we should mess with the back 4. Its not perfect, and Robbo has had some shaky games, but generally speaking it ain't broke so it don't need fixing. Stick to what we know and we can't go far wrong. Bradford are likely to be missing James Hanson (their top scorer) which is a plus for us, but looking at their side it looks like they will go with either Scot Dobie or Gareth Evans up front - perhaps both - and both are handy in the air. As good as Ellis is on his day, he can't afford to have an off-day against either of them too. Also, Bradford look set to include Kevin Ellison after an injury. Although not as quick as he used to be, he is still a solid player at this level. I believe he is best used out on the left wing, and I fear he would be too wiley for Robbo at full-back. We need the energy of Mansell there to combat any threat he brings.

I also think that playing any 2 of the above would, although undoubtedly give us some bite in the centre, leave us with with no passing finesse. None of those 3 have ever really shown the ability to pick the ball up and ping off a killer pass like Stanley was doing. As a result, playing say a partnership of Lathrope and Mansell would probably see them sitting very deep, and we all know that if Guy or Robbo need an outlet they don't need to be asked twice to play long.

Playing long ball would definately be a mistake, as Bradford have 2 giant centre halves in Steve Williams and Luke Oliver. Even if Zebs has the best of days, he'll struggle to come out on top in a battle with those 2. However, none of their defence are much cop on the deck.

Playing too defensive a central midfield partnership would probably see us playing to Bradfords strengths. We need to play to our strengths - it's going to be a nice day, nice big pitch and a good playing surface. We need to pick a side that can out-football them. For me, that means O'Kane and Oastler in the centre mid positions (Oastler over Lathrope purely for the extra height), and I'd plump (no pun intended) for Kee up front over Murray, and go 4-4-2 with Jake and Tomlin on the wings. I think that'll give us the creativity, pace and guile that we need to get a result.

Its easy this management lark when your sat at home and have a few seasons of Football Manager under your belt! I'd like to see us set out as per the above, I also wouldn't be too upset if we reverted to the 4-4-1-1 like we played at Barnet, this time with Lathrope and Oastler as the holding midfielders, O'Kane in the hole, and then rotate Zebs, Jake and Kee/Tomlin as play dictates. Tomorrow is such a crucial game given the circumstances of the week that I am desperate for us to grind something out! And to make matters worse I'll be relying on text messages and a very poor 3G reception to keep track of the score!

[Trojan 67]

Didn't catch all the line up, but Oastler and Lathrope named in the starting line up.

[Scott Brehaut]

01 Bevan
03 Nicholson
05 Robertson
07 Mansell
23 Branston
10 O'Kane
18 Oastler
22 Lathrope
09 Robinson
15 Tomlin
26 Zebroski
Substitutes
16 Potter, 02 Rowe-Turner, 04 Ellis, 17 Halpin, 19 Stevens, 08 Kee, 11 Murray

[Trojan 67]

Julian Gaunt will be the Radio Devon commentator and I'm hoping It's Dave Thomas with him as usual, otherwise it won't sound like a Jeff match report.

Edit : thanks for the full team details Scott.

[Wisconsin_gull]

Looks like the new coach driver got us there today
First game without Stanley - we will miss him
Need the rest to play up
Think the point deduction will serve to strengthen the spirit and full expect a nail biting 3 points
2-1 Branston, O'Kane
COYY

[Trojan 67]

From early commo, it's 4-4-2, Oastler/Lathrope midfield, Euan right, Robinson left, Zebs/Tomlin up top.

[Wisconsin_gull]

Barnet 2 up
Burton losing
AC Northampton losing
Stockport holding Stevenage...

Squeaky bum time down at the bottom

Barnet are safe

[Yellow4life]

Goooooooooal!!

[Gulliball]

Missed it, but we're ahead!! Get in there Nico!

They can cut to the Rugby again if they like...

[Mendipgull]

Get in.

[Trojan 67]

Just f*cking great !

Commo goes off just as Nico hits the ball for the opening goal !

I - 0 United