Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm
Posts: 4813
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE CAZBAR BIG GAME PREVIEW – BRADFORD CITYOn Saturday it was business as usual for the Dons in many ways, particularly the end result, but people are saying there are glimmers of light, but I hope they are not imagining things that aren’t there, I guess the coming weeks will either prove or disprove that theory.
I do think though it was evident that we were trying to play it out from the back with crisp short passes which is of course a high risk strategy and ultimately led to the only goal of the game, we lost the ball midway in our own half, we missed at least two chances to get it clear before it fell to Whalley on the edge of the box and he hit it high into the roof of the net giving Mac no chance. Moments later the same happened again to the degree I almost thought I was watching a replay of the goal, thankfully though O’Hora managed to get a toe in and knock it to safety.
Whilst I applaud the new strategy or tactic, it must be said that Accrington did deal with it well, as will other teams before we get it right or succumb to further caught in possession errors leading to a goal making it a nervy start to the reign of Mike Williamson.
Thankfully largely hoof ball was off the menu and we did engineer several half decent chances through Gilbey, Dean and Robson, but when it came to the crunch Mo failed to hit the target despite a couple of golden opportunities. Dean and Gilbey also had great chances but again the Accy stopper wasn’t troubled giving him an easy afternoon between the sticks.
Mo was given the hook early in the 2nd half but Dennis and Leko who came on after had no effect on the game whatsoever, furthermore, to me, Dennis did not look interested one bit, his efforts at chasing lost causes or trying to force defenders into errors is non-existent.
I would imagine MW is already thinking what many of us have known for a long time, we are painfully weak up front, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him plucking someone he knows from the National League in January to give us a bit of beef upfront, that is assuming he is still here in January...who knows, hopefully it doesn’t get that far…the bad run I mean, not his tenure at the Dons helm.
So, the home debut of MW on Tuesday night against Bradford City, fingers crossed.
Below is the current league table position of both teams with the Dons home record and the away record of the Bantams.
Dons (18th) – P 14, W 4, D 4, L 6, GF 19, GA 21, Pts 16.
Bradford (11th) – P 14, W 5, D 5, L 4, GF 15, GA 15, Pts 20.
Dons (H) (18th) – P 6, W 2, D 2, L 2, GF 7, GA 7, Pts 8.
Bradford (A) (12th) – P 7, W 2, D 2, L 3, GF 7, GA 8, Pts 8.
Below is the away record of Bradford City in the league with the most recent game shown first.
AFC 0 Bradford 1
Tranmere 2 Bradford 1
Newport County 1 Bradford 4
Mansfield 0 Bradford 0
Morecambe 3 Bradford 0
Stockport 1 Bradford 1
Crawley 1 Bradford 1
The gaffer at Bradford was Mark Hughes who was one of the first managerial casualties of the LG 2 season and he was sacked on the 4th of October with the Bantams in 18th place after being in charge for just over 18 months.
It seems like a bit of “player power” was one of the main factors in the sacking with comments coming out of the dressing room suggesting Hughes was trying to shoehorn Premier League tactics into a LG 2 side.
Currently holding the fort is former Scottish International 34 year old midfielder Kevin McDonald as the Player/Caretaker Manager and so far he is making a pretty good job of things with 3 wins and 1 draw in his first 4 games…. a bit of “New Manager Bounce” if ever I’ve seen it.
There is other than that very little to go on regarding McDonald, but if he continues in this vein he could well land the full time appointment at Valley Parade.
Strangely we could easily have seen MK’s favourite son in the Bradford dugout but Robbo it was reported by reliable journo Peter O’Rourke has turned down the Yorkshire club on at least two occasions although Bradford deny he was ever on the list of prospective candidates.
In case you’re interested former Pompey boss Danny Cowley is the hot favourite to take over at odds of 5/4, but the odds are tumbling on the Caretaker Boss bringing him into 2nd favourite and 9/4 with the bookies.
The likely dangers from Bradford are probably going to be striker Andy Cook who has 5 goals and also tops the assists chart with 2 in 13 games. Another potential danger, although he will likely have to come off the bench is former Don and right back Daniel Oyegoke who played 18 games for the Dons with no goals. He’s made 7 appearances for the Bantams this season, and you wouldn’t be shocked to see him come on and score his first professional goal.
Historically we have a poor record against Bradford City winning just 5 games in 16 attempts, losing 10, with just the single draw, and the last time we beat them in the league was back the 2007/08 season where we did the double over them, but we have beaten them since in the League Cup in 2014.
The record of those games with Dons scorers is shown below.
2004/05 – Dons 1 Bradford 2 (McLeod)
2004/05 – Bradford 1 Dons 4 (McLeod 2, Small, Harding)
2005/06 – Bradford 2 Dons 0
2005/06 – Dons 2 Bradford 1 (Harding, Lewington)
2007/08 – Dons 2 Bradford 1 (Andrews, Swailes)
2007/08 – Bradford 1 Dons 2 (Stirling, Dyer)
2007/08 – Dons 1 Bradford 2 (FAC) (Johnson)
2013/14 – Dons 2 Bradford 3 (Bamford, S Williams)
2013/14 – Bradford 1 Dons 0
2014/15 – Dons 1 Bradford 2 (Lewington)
2014/15 – Dons 2 Bradford 0 (LC) (Afobe 2)
2014/15 – Bradford 2 Dons 1 (Alli)
2016/17 – Dons 1 Bradford 2 (E Upson)
2016/17 – Bradford 2 Dons 2 (O’Keefe, GB Williams)
2017/18 – Dons 1 Bradford 4 (Ebanks-Landell)
2017/18 – Bradford 2 Dons 0
That totals up at P 16, W 5, D 1, L 10, GF 22, GA 28.
The betting for this in my mind is a bit off the mark, we have failed to win in 9 games, Bradford have won 3 out of their last 4 and drawn the other game 1-1 with Wrexham, and yet we are the favourites in the bookie’s eyes. I’m thinking the odds on Bradford will possibly shorten as kick off approaches, odds of just over 2/1 on the Bantams seem a bit long to me and is bound to garner interest from punters looking for a bit of healthy value.
MK Dons 27/20, Draw 12/5, Bradford 21/10.
Prediction…the million dollar question, well who can be confident predicting any Dons game, I’ve just about given up, but what I can say is most stats point at a low scoring game, with the likeliest outcome 1-1, but another interesting little stat is that this game has finished 2-1 on 8 of the 16 games previously.
My final thoughts are we are going to have to be more clinical in front of goal, at the moment Mo is woeful and I’m not even sure if MW will hand him a start so I wouldn’t be shocked to see him shuffle the pack a bit more with one or two changes.
Bradford have their tails up since Hughes was sent packing and are playing with a bit more freedom as their 21 shots against Wrexham on Saturday suggests, this is not going to be a comfortable home debut for fans or manager, I expect yet another nerve shredding, nail biting evening at SMK.
Try and Enjoy it.  WD
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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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