Bradford City manager Graham Alexander's message to Andy Cook and the club's supporters

Cook, last term’s League Two Golden Boot winner with 28 goals, which saw him named as the division’s PFA player of the year and earn a place in the team of the season in 2022-23, has scored only six times this term and netted just once in his last eight outings.

The 33-year-old spurned several opportunities in Saturday’s 4-2 televised loss at Notts County.

Alexander said: “That’s the nature of the business. If you are a goalkeeper, you are there to keep clean sheets and if you are a striker, you are there to score goals and Cooky thrives off goals.

"What I would say is that he got into those situations a lot and we delivered a lot of opportunities for him.

"We cannot do much more and we got people to support him. We got in some unbelievable positions and created some great chances.

"All players go through runs of form where their outstanding attribute is not quite clicking. But we believe in Cooky and his record is there for everyone to see and if we can help him in any way, we will do that.

"The player had to believe we are going to create chances for him. But Cooky will be upset, rightly so if he has not scored goals and we have not won and whatever.

"I am not expecting to see a player smiling and happy.”City's season reached a new nadir in the East Midlands after conceding four unanswered goals in an awful first half at Meadow Lane.

Two second-half goals clawed back a bit of pride, but the afternoon was far from acceptable for City who find themselves in a derisory 19th place in the table.The angst of 2,276 visiting fans at Meadow Lane was interspersed with chants calling on owner Stefan Rupp to sell the club and leave.

Alexander added: "You cannot look at the game as a positive experience at all.

"What we did show is that if you give them (fans) something and show fight, endeavour and a positive attitude, they will get behind you and that's what we did in the second half.

"We had to give them something and we can't expect to take that support for granted. But we can't pat ourselves on the back, we were 4-0 down at half-time and can't sweep that under the carpet."