BRADFORD CITY V PLYMOUTH ARGYLE & team news

David Prutton, His prediction piece for Sky Sports

Bradford City head into this weekend’s clash with Plymouth Argyle looking for only their second win in 12 games.
City’s poor run of form over December and January led to Gary Bowyer being shown the exit in early February, with club legend Stuart McCall returning a day later for his third stint as manager.
The returning manager hasn’t quite had the effect he would have hoped for, winning just one of his four games in charge, throwing away 1-0 leads to lose 2-1 in their last two matches.
On Saturday, City welcome promotion-chasing Plymouth Argyle to the Utilita Energy Stadium, with the Pilgrims sitting just one point behind the automatic promotion places.
It hasn’t quite been the return that Stuart McCall would have wanted so far to Bradford, winning just one game in four, and losing their last two.
Plymouth are right in the mix for automatic promotion, and will fancy their chances in this one despite drawing their last two games. Away win for me
The former Leeds United man went on to predict a narrow 2-1 win for the Pilgrims, a result which would certainly make the 660-mile round trip worth it for the traveling Argyle fans.

Kelvin Mellor is in a fight for fitness to play against former club Plymouth Argyle against Bradford City at Valley Parade on Saturday.

On-loan Peterborough United midfielder Callum Cooke could also return to action against the Pilgrims.
Cooke has been out for the last three matches because of a back problem.

Possible Bradford starting line-up: O’Donnell; Mellor, O’Connor, Richards-Everton, Wood; Mottley-Henry, Reeves, Cooke, Middleton; Novak, Donaldson.

Lowe Happy with the 5 years Plan

ARGYLE manager Ryan Lowe believes that progress behind the scenes at Home Park is keeping up with his on-field ambitions.

“We’ve got good people behind the scenes,” said Ryan. “I’m not saying that we didn’t have that before, but we’ve got good people now and we’re all working off the same sheet. We’re all doing the right things to make sure we can improve everyone, not just the football.”  

Chairman Simon Hallett unveiled a new five-year plan earlier in the week, with sustainable Championship-level football the target.

“I’m a happy manager - why wouldn’t you be? I’m working for a fantastic football club, we’ve got a fantastic team and we’re going in the right direction,” said Ryan.

“It’s not about me it’s not about whether I move on or what I do. This is a football club that is going in the right direction and it’s got good people here. When you’re working with good people, whatever comes and whatever arises, that’s why they're good people as they wouldn’t stand in anyone’s way.

“It [Championship football] is definitely achievable. If we had a  fanbase of 2,500 every other week, it’s not achievable, but we’ve got a fanbase of potentially 15 or 16 thousand, so why wouldn’t it be achievable.

“He [Simon] has come in and secured the future of the Football Club probably for the next five years. We feel that every league you are in, you want to finish as high as you possibly can. Whether it’s League Two, League One or the Championship, all these teams want to finish as high as they possibly can.

“We’re no different, we’ve obviously got to plan for the future, which we have. We plan from the start of this season to finish as high as you possibly can in League Two and we’re on course with that.

“Is that more pressure on my shoulders, I’ll take it, I’m a rough scouser from a council estate but I’ll take the pressure, it’s fine. There are a lot more people out there with bigger pressure than me, in terms of life and everything else.

"We’re happy to have the five-year plan.




Argyle injury updates

Defender Will Aimson is set to return to full training with Plymouth Argyle at the start of next week.

A updates on striker Ryan Taylor, who also returned to full training today after the recurrence of a foot injury.

Telford played the whole game against Fulham, alongside Joel Grant, as they gained some valuable match practice.

Josh Grant is due back with us from Chelsea on Monday to finish the back end of his rehab.

764 tickets pre-sold for tomorrow's visit and it is POTD

I am going for a 2 - nil win for Argyle, we must find our goals touch

1-1

just avoid defeat today

Bratfud win

Several Bradford fans on Twitter think the game might be called off. Their pitch doesn't look great.

Need to keep winning now - simple as.
COYG

Chemical Ali wrote:

Several Bradford fans on Twitter think the game might be called off. Their pitch doesn't look great.

There pitch has always been mud heap as far I can remember even though it’s a bad pitch it’s gunna have to be really bad for it to be called off

Chemical Ali wrote:

Several Bradford fans on Twitter think the game might be called off. Their pitch doesn't look great.

Yep seen a picture of their pitch and it was more brown then green. Saying that every pitch looked like that in the 80’s and they still played on regardless.

Bradford City AFC
@officialbantams
·
4m
Seedling | Today's game against
@Only1Argyle
is set to go ahead as planned, with conditions continuing to improve at the
@UtilitaEnergy
Stadium!

Thumbs up | There will be a pitch inspection at 10.30am - as a precaution - to confirm...

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Be a hard game up there I’d be happy with a point today as long as we avoid defeat and not Start to lose ground on teams above us 1-1

Having observed the playing surface, referee Carl Boyeson has requested a further pitch inspection - at 1.00pm - to re-evaluate the situation.

Sun behind large cloud
| Weather conditions remain clear and we apologise for any inconvenience caused...


WTF - another pitch inspection! Bit late for the jobsworth official to suddenly change his mind. Asusual no consideration fro travelling fans.

Yep same as usual don’t give a F#%K about the fans that have been on there way since stupid aclock this morning 🤬

Bradford City AFC @officialbantams
·
4m
White heavy check mark GAME ON! | Referee Carl Boyeson has again assessed the pitch and is happy for action to get underway from 3.00pm.

Same team

No surprises there.

akagreengull wrote:

No surprises there.

hardie should be starting i feel and jephcott on the bench to come on and try and get the win for us imo.

Great start 1 - 0 down after 6 mins.

Shitty losing at home.

Sawyer red carded - lino decision ffs!

Harsh red card and 1-0 down. Going to be tough now

Flat_Track_Bully wrote:

Having observed the playing surface, referee Carl Boyeson has requested a further pitch inspection - at 1.00pm - to re-evaluate the situation.

Sun behind large cloud
| Weather conditions remain clear and we apologise for any inconvenience caused...


WTF - another pitch inspection! Bit late for the jobsworth official to suddenly change his mind. Asusual no consideration fro travelling fans.

Totally unfair comment. The usual scenario is for the matchday referee to do everything possible to make sure the game goes ahead. If pushed to make a decision early in the morning, the match may be off, but giving the pitch another few hours to dry out can mean the game can go on.

2-0

Game over wtf.

Absolute dog toffee.

Fuckking liabiity, Sawyer.