Bradford away Sat February 21st....

[chestersaddler]

Anyone else lost our commentary on Sadsworld? - having to listen to te Bradford version

[chestersaddler]

fudge and fool bollocks :evil: :evil:

[Surrey Saddler]

Yes, no commentary on Saddlers World. Have to listen to Bradford

[chestersaddler]

one apiece :D :D

[TheSwift]

Its that Jordy Hiwula-Mayifulia again! :D

[SaddlerCraig]

YES 1-1 Jordy!

lets push on would be a massive 3 pts before Orient next weekend

[chestersaddler]

Under the cosh - O'Donell just made a good save

Less than 5 to play

Baxendale on for Cook

[chestersaddler]

That's it folks. If indeed there is anyone out there today :?

Great point :D :D

[Guest]

We'll draw 1-1 in front of 13,500 including a Walsall following that will be 1.5% of our Wembley support.

Wow! Didn't look at it like that.

What on earth can be done to make these people regular fans?
Leave a free season ticket on each seat at Wembley?
I wonder if doing that would result if full houses at the Banks's for a while?
And would sales of drinks and food make it a worthwhile exercise?
Get off your bot bots marketing people and work on this.

Think 1.5% might be over the top!

Whilst Wembley does provide a great marketing opportunity, I don't think there's any reason for regulars to get all antsy with the 20,000 irregulars. I look at it like a wedding. It's a celebration and Walsall fans have invited family and friends to share in their special day.

Guest - keep yours stub from today and hey presto, you now qualify.

The one from last Saturday didn't do me much good...

[Guest]

Good point. Quite exciting in the second half.

OK, train back to Glasgow, then flight back to HK.

[PT]

Good point against another big horrible team on a horrible pitch.

Subs actually made all the difference. Taylor was having possibly his worst game in a Walsall shirt and Sawyers cut a frustrated figure all afternoon. Grimes and Rico definitely swung the balance and the last ten could have seen either team win it.

Great cross from Cook and a cool header from Jordy. Reminiscent of the goal Bradshaw got at Sheff Utd but at closer range.

Good following. Cold day. No bar.

[hullsaddler]

Draw was probably a fair result. Pretty indifferent game played on an indifferent pitch, though 2nd half was better than the first. We played too many wayward passes. Good cross for our goal though. Was impressed by Rico Henry when he came on. Thought O'Donnell might have done better for their goal. I was directly in line with the shot and he seemed to me quite slow in reacting, though perhaps he was unsighted?
God it was cold!

[SoccerHQ]

To me that was the exact replica of the Sheffield away game before xmas which was the last away game I went to.

Poor first half on an impossible pitch in which you wonder how Bradford beat all these teams in the cup, Bradford step it up and get a goal, Walsall step it up and get a goal (again exactly the same as in Sheffield, a striker heads in from a Cook cross) and the match then peters out.

There was however improvement when Grimes went on. He played upfront with Jordy but with licence to drop a bit deeper. Rico Henry also played well.

Can't help thinking with Bradshaw back imminently it might be wise to give Sawyers a game or two out of the team to refresh him. Same for Taylor if he's carrying a knock. Get them firing for Wembley.

Walsall are a top 10 standard team based on the last few months...but not quite good enough for the top 6.

Interesting summer ahead for Smith and his recruitment policy, imo the first 11 is very competitive now and can go toe to toe and get results against most teams in this division so it would be good to sign 1-2 quality players rather than the likes of Manset, Grimes (as much as he's been better recently) and Hewitt that simply make up the numbers.

[JonnyOwen]

I thought League 1 was moving away from hoofball and was beginning to become a league with good passing teams.

Then we played Port Vale and Bradford back to back and that thought has long gone... HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF

Played poorly but I'm going to put that don't to a poor pitch hindering our style of play and Bradford being a very good side with insane squad depth. fudge Francois Zoko is like 4 choice striker for fudge sake :lol:

Subs made all the different, well done Smith, made the right subs at the right time. Hiwula was fantastic and lively, Taylor struggled with the pitch and Cook's delivery is yet again superb.

[SoccerHQ]

Bradford aren't that long ball imo, they've played some good football in the cup games, I thought Sheffield United were a lot worse before xmas. Didn't see Vale last week but yeah with Pope in your team you need to be long ball for him to score goals.

Bradford tend to hit it into corners and build the play from there. Not too dissimilar to the Walsall tactics nowadays of hitting it early for Bradshaw/Hiwula to run onto and then try to create stuff once they've held it up.

[Sadders]

A war of attrition, can sum that up best. Woeful standard of match on the worst pitch I can remember in years, worse than County's quagmire in February. Unfortunately that meant we could only play long balls with any effect, sadly our team isn't cut out for that and so we created literally zilch bar a few well delivered crosses and a Forde snapshot late on. We stayed relatively organised and compact against a physical long ball side but to be honest, I thought we were dreadful on the ball and poor at best creatively. Hiwula was a bright spark and I thought Sawyers did okay against some big centre halfs. I was on the back row literally right in line behind the shot and O'Donnell should have saved it - it was a grass cutter that bobbled a couple of times. On TV reflection, it may have bobbled over his hands. Thought we were done and dusted then to be honest. Correct decision to bring Henry and Grimes on, who both played well - especially Henry. Lovely cross from Cook and good movement from Hiwula, thought he may have been offside in the ground but he's not on TV. Another assist for Cook. He and Forde are hard to comment on really. When they got involved, which was irregularly at best - they did ok, but they were anonymous for long periods - the hoof did nothing for them as we basically alienated the wide areas of the pitch. Its the least Purkiss has attacked since he first arrived. He was the best of the back 5 though.

Taylor was awful, he looked legitimately like a pub player at times. Downing and O'Connor were poor with the ball, O'Connor couldn't kick it further than 10 yards in the first half and well Downing, just can't do much of the football stuff at the best of times. Chambers and Cain covered ground but you watch them both for 90 minutes and then ask yourself if you can definitively remember something they did over the 90 minutes...and then you scratch your head. What annoyed me was the amount of times we hoofed the ball needlessly out of play - pitch or no pitch, some of it was just stupid.

They committed a few extra numbers forward right at the end and we had some promising looking counter attacks but nothing came of them. Overall, a good result, but a very average attacking performance, on a terrible pitch that made it basically impossible for us to play our normal game. We defended very well again in the main and it's 1 point closer to 50. We will have to improve in coming weeks if we are not to end up looking over our shoulder.

[Sadders]

Bradford aren't that long ball imo, they've played some good football in the cup games, I thought Sheffield United were a lot worse before xmas. Didn't see Vale last week but yeah with Pope in your team you need to be long ball for him to score goals.

Bradford tend to hit it into corners and build the play from there. Not too dissimilar to the Walsall tactics nowadays of hitting it early for Bradshaw/Hiwula to run onto and then try to create stuff once they've held it up.

Did you go today? I've seen them play in the cup a few times and agree with you. They play diagonals to wide men and them whip good attacking balls into the box to forwards. However, today was - one of the most cynically obvious example of a team just hoofing it forward that I've seen in ages. Every single bouncing ball got lumped forward, every free kick in our half was launched to Jon Stead. They were ugly, cynical, nasty - the kind of football you get sacked quickly for if it doesn't produce results.

Clearly PP gets results from it. Obviously the pitch was a big factor, but my word - today was awful - from both sides.

[SoccerHQ]

Bradford aren't that long ball imo, they've played some good football in the cup games, I thought Sheffield United were a lot worse before xmas. Didn't see Vale last week but yeah with Pope in your team you need to be long ball for him to score goals.

Bradford tend to hit it into corners and build the play from there. Not too dissimilar to the Walsall tactics nowadays of hitting it early for Bradshaw/Hiwula to run onto and then try to create stuff once they've held it up.

Did you go today? I've seen them play in the cup a few times and agree with you. They play diagonals to wide men and them whip good attacking balls into the box to forwards. However, today was - one of the most cynically obvious example of a team just hoofing it forward that I've seen in ages. Every single bouncing ball got lumped forward, every free kick in our half was launched to Jon Stead. They were ugly, cynical, nasty - the kind of football you get sacked quickly for if it doesn't produce results.

Clearly PP gets results from it. Obviously the pitch was a big factor, but my word - today was awful - from both sides.

Yes and as I've said I went to Sheffield United before xmas and imo with a far bigger budget they were much worse at hoofing.

To a degree most clubs in league one still play long ball, PNE play long ball to Kevin Davies to flick it on, Sheffield United, Bradford, Bristol City get it forward quickly to Wilbraham and Matt Smith etc.

One I haven't seen live for quite a while is Swindon and with the make up of their squad I imagine they get it down and play.

It depends if it's your only tactic is to hit and hope or once the knockdowns happen you then build up play.

[SWS1]

Good point today - when you've been a goal down, a draw feels almost like a win. Good to see yet again that one goal against doesn't mean curtains for us this season; we can come back.
It's still very frustrating to contemplate all the games we have thrown away this season, as well as the games where we've come good against the odds. A modicum of consistency would see us in the playoffs, no doubt.
Any away point is a damn good point :D
NOW SORT OUT THAT HOME FORM, DEANO, AND THE PLAYOFFS ARE OURS!
(BUT IT'S A GOOD JOB WE'RE THE AWAY TEAM AT WEMBLEY :lol: )

[kshammer]

Draw away against a decent team on a potato field... cor moan.

[gray]

Thought we did alright yesterday without really playing at our best. We were held back by a bad pitch and a bad ref. It's true that both teams played on the same pitch but Bradford must know the best way to handle every movement of the ball taking an extra bobble.

We came out of our shells 2nd half. I thought when Cain upped his game towards the end he looked excellent and really controlled our play. I was also really impressed with Hiwula, who's movement was excellent and was very tidy when he had ball to feet, you can tell he's been coached at a higher level. Also a special mention to Grimes who looked great when he came on, really took the game to them and could have had a penalty (I'd really like to see it again)

It was my first trip to Valley Parade and I was well impressed. A proper nice ground in the middle of a community.

UTS

[Ancient Moaner]

Had one of the best visits to Valley Parade (or whatever they have to call in now), in years! With Neil & Dave, (a local Premiership supporter) we were in what could only be described as a 70's real ale stone floor and spittoon pub, think it was called the Cock & Bottle or such, which served real ale to real ale drinkers, was crammed with Bratfort fans. I was regaled with a cider which was 'brought out of a back room', 8.7% proof that would knock your socks off! I floated to the match!
Of the match itself, as described so eloquently above, it was a Sunday morning pub teams match on a pitch that resembled a local Parks pitch...awful.
Good to see that after going 1-0 down (after which they thought they had the win sewn up) heads didn't fall and we battled hard for the equaliser...a great headed goal from Hiw/Huw/Hiu..oh bugga you know, the Man City lad!
The Ref was also appalling, if we made so much as a challenge for the ball it was deemed a foul, he did all within his power to ensure a home win. Their monstrous back line got away with murderous attacks including a blatant penalty without redress.
Good point, on a good day for me. Good away following, in good voice.
Can't wait for that magical 50 points mark, anyone but anyone in this league could either drop into the relegation zone or climb to the play off's, it's that close.

[PT]

We'll draw 1-1 in front of 13,500.

And I did actually win on the lottery last night too. First three numbers and then nowt but paid for mine and the boys' tickets yesterday.

[chestersaddler]

We'll draw 1-1 in front of 13,500.

And I did actually win on the lottery last night too. First three numbers and then nowt but paid for mine and the boys' tickets yesterday.

Nice one. Only 34 off :D

[Ancient Moaner]

Sad to see that even after a hard fought point against a very strong 'play off' team, we seem to be slipping further and further down the league...obviously our appalling home form is to blame, but it's ironic that despite the fact that our away results this season have been some of the best in recent memory, we are falling way behind in the push for a play off place, so much so that I would think that our season is all but over......................thank god for the Wembley appearance to make up for the disappointment! :?

[chestersaddler]

Sad to see that even after a hard fought point against a very strong 'play off' team, we seem to be slipping further and further down the league...obviously our appalling home form is to blame, but it's ironic that despite the fact that our away results this season have been some of the best in recent memory, we are falling way behind in the push for a play off place, so much so that I would think that our season is all but over......................thank god for the Wembley appearance to make up for the disappointment! :?

Given that you had us as relegation certainties after the first few games, I would have thought that a mid table finish would be success for you, Ancient?

[Guest]

I don't think AM was quite on form in his posts above - probably to do with the cider.

I mean, he sounded almost positive...

[Whitters]

We'll draw 1-1 in front of 13,500 including a Walsall following that will be 1.5% of our Wembley support.

Wow! Didn't look at it like that.

What on earth can be done to make these people regular fans?
Leave a free season ticket on each seat at Wembley?
I wonder if doing that would result if full houses at the Banks's for a while?
And would sales of drinks and food make it a worthwhile exercise?
Get off your bot bots marketing people and work on this.

Whilst Wembley does provide a great marketing opportunity, I don't think there's any reason for regulars to get all antsy with the 20,000 irregulars. I look at it like a wedding. It's a celebration and Walsall fans have invited family and friends to share in their special day.

If you think that's antsy....

Seriously, how many chances do we get to have 20,000 people who loosely support us all in one place at the same time?
It's a unique chance - if it can be taken advantage of then great.

[gray]

Also a special mention needs to be given to the terrified cat that made an appearance on the pitch in the second half.

[Guest]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ67G4a6nQw