Bradford City boss makes Alex Pattison admission plus updates on Andy Cook, Kevin McDonald and Alex Gilliead

The former Harrogate Town player, who arrived at the club last summer, has been plagued by hamstring trouble this season and underwent surgery in January.

He has featured just 13 times for City in all competitions this term, with his last appearance being on December 23.

Alexander, whose side welcome Gillingham on Saturday, said: "I think he potentially could return if we really pushed him. But is the risk worth it when he’s been out so long to get maybe one or two games? I’m not so sure.

"He trained twice with us last week, but it was a little bit managed. He has to have a recovery day in between.

"I think it would be a long shot and it’s not something we’re particularly pushing hard for right now.

"We feel he will be a really important player for us and we don’t want a recurrence of what’s happened to him this season.

"I believe if we don’t have to take that risk, we won’t and we’ll have a safer return for Patto come pre-season.

"He’s chomping at the bit but he wants to play a long part for us, not just one game or something like that. We’ll probably look after him.”

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Alexander reports positive developments regarding top-scorer Andy Cook and Kevin McDonald, who missed the club’s Easter programme with issues.

He said: "They trained (on Tuesday), so that was a real positive.

"We’ll have to see how they respond to that and make sure they are okay to continue training towards the end of the week.”

Alex Gilliead could return to action by the middle of the month following a calf issue, but Alexander is circumspect regarding involvement for Sam Stubbs and Ash Taylor, as it stands.

He continued: “He (Gilliead) was out on the grass with the physio on his own doing some work, so that’s a step forward for him.

"It wasn’t a major injury that he got. We were looking at two to three weeks anyway, so I think he’s on course for his return to training as we predicted.

"The weekend will be too early for him but hopefully next week he’ll be back in our group.

"Sam is still missing. Ash was going to train with us, but we had to be on the 4G, so that was difficult for him.

"I think he’ll be with us before the weekend, but he’s obviously missed a big chunk. It’s really difficult to put players straight in contention, as we’ve seen the last few months.

"They take a bit of time to get up to speed and we don’t want to risk any further injury.”