Bradford City vs Exeter City Matchday Thread

[Bridgy 81]

The, so called, 'dark arts' in general and time-wasting in particular are a blight on the game.
[/QUOTE]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this.
Professional football is a dirty business.
We've been the victim of this more times than I care to remember.
We then tend to moan a bit and complain how unfair it is.
If we want to succeed and move up, we need to understand what it involves to do that and do it.

 

[Rosencrantz]

Game management is always going to be part of the game. You don't mind it when it's your team, you do when it's against you. Although I find it frustrating when it happens against us, I don't blame the players as such but rather the match officials who very rarely are able or willing to to control it.

 

[andrew p long]

Game management is always going to be part of the game. You don't mind it when it's your team, you do when it's against you. Although I find it frustrating when it happens against us, I don't blame the players as such but rather the match officials who very rarely are able or willing to to control it.

I blame the rules more than the officials; the referee doesn't really have the tools to stop the time wasting.

I hate the time wasting. We had it throughout the 51 minutes of the second half on Tuesday. 47 minutes from Orient until we scored, then 4 minutes from us at 1-0.

 

[Rosencrantz]

I blame the rules more than the officials; the referee doesn't really have the tools to stop the time wasting.

I hate the time wasting. We had it throughout the 51 minutes of the second half on Tuesday. 47 minutes from Orient until we scored, then 4 minutes from us at 1-0.

The referee's tool to stop it is in his pocket. One warning and then a yellow. How often though do you only see a yellow card come out in the last five minutes? By then it is too late. Adding on the time is all well and good but the team doing the time wasting have got what they want...a bitty game.

 

[STURTZ]

I think the tactic of wasting time to break up a period of pressure is brilliant and it would take an experienced keeper like Dawson to do it properly. Nice one Cam!

 

[dontpassback]

We always seemed to be quite naive when people like wycombe and Accy Stanley did it against us,so perhaps whilst it won’t win us many friends we are doing it to our advantage,it’s not pretty but it’s part of the modern game and while the refs don’t clamp down on it teams will do it

 

[richard_portland]

I would always rather in an ideal world see us attack the opposition and win comfortably but often to go up you need to win tight games which we have often failed to do.

The best way to stop the opposition doing it has always been to be as solid as possible defensively to avoid chasing matches. When we get in front it’s important if under pressure not to just drop closer and closer to our own goal, but if we are put under pressure stopping the other side building momentum is going to help protect a lead and possibly force errors.

until such time as we are so superior as to being able to blow other sides away , imo we need to gain any advantage we can.

 

[Grecian Piglet]

Agreed. Dawson had a few more shots to deal with but dealt with them all comfortably. Stubbs and Diabate were both again immense but Sweeney was arguably even better and I know I'm getting carried away here but I'm not sure he's ever played better for us. I thought Collins did ok and was impressed that he was still full of running in the last few minutes of the game. I also thought Atangana did well when he came on; he won pretty much every tackle and kept possession well. It's great to have so many different options on the bench who can all impact the game in different ways.

Agree with all of this

 

[SEA Grecian]

I don't think he was time wasting at 0-0 but managing the game, controlling the tempo of the game and affecting Bradford's play by doing so.

Exactly, I don't recall him taking too long over goal-kicks in the second half, even though we were leading.

 

[SEA Grecian]

Looking at the goal again, their keeper absolutely clatters into Phillips after the ball has gone. Would we have had a penalty if Phillips hadn't scored, and should the keeper have been booked?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1492632705372196865