I have now seen the goals and read all the further comments on the match.
Both Bradford goals originating on our right side, while well-taken by Cook demonstrated shambolic defending by Rovers. For the first, there were defenders standing and looking at each other, while Cook had a free-header. While Doohan ought to have made some attempt at stopping it, coming off his line, it falls into the collective cock-up category for me, rather than purely down to the keeper. Their second was equally poor defending. I don't think Turnbull can be exempt from blame here, he was the lead defender of the three and in the centre. Hemmings took his goal well and had another decent chance, as did Nevitt.
With the players available, we did not have to play 523. 442, as we started at Orient was equally viable. It was telling in that game that things got worse after Rovers switched to 523. Why Micky chose to persist with that and with the 3 in exactly the same positions after the problems of the previous game is a decision that he must take the responsibility for. If Turnbull is able to play left-footed then he ought to have been on the left side. We had the inexperienced Jamieson as the centre of 3 in the opening game, so you'd think Byrne is competent enough to take that role.
I agree with the concerns about lack of onfield leaders, though this would appear to be more a failure of player recruitment rather than retention. We tried to keep Clarke and Foley. Spearing chose to retire and get a coaching job and Murphy was always going to be taking a more back-seat role. With Clarke, whose already been dropped at Walsall, wonder if he's regretting making the move know. The consensus on here was that it was time for him to move on, while I've always had reservations about his style of leadership, too much bawling out of team-mates. While I'd like to have kept Foley, don't recall him being a pillar of leadership last season.
Palios has spent money on Hawkes, O'Connor, Hemmings last season and Byrne this, so it is wrong to shunt the blame onto him for the current predicament. It didn't feel unreasonable to suggest we'd play more attacking football after some of the poor away fare served up in the second half of last season, despite the reinforcements brought in January. Rovers have been unfortunate in losing 2 experienced players Morris and Davies for a significant time period, but I don't think the current squad is that raw.
Finally, it is realistic to think that we're potentially in a relegation scrap here. Some of those sides below us picked up points on Tuesday night and we have a testing run of games coming up. The side which started this game don't look capable of delivering enough over the full 90 to get us out of this mess, so it is up to the manager to find us a combination from the current personnel which can do. There should be nobody exempt from dropping after this game.