Aiming to keep City fresh for road trips

After edging out Northampton Town at Sixfields on Tuesday night, the Bantams again head south today to Burton Albion.

The vagaries of Cup draws will then see Parkinson take his side to Wigan Athletic on Tuesday night in the Capital One Cup before returning to Northampton in the FA Cup a week today.

Bradford’s travelling odyssey then ends with a trip to Aldershot Town on November 10, four days after their only home fixture during this demanding schedule when Chesterfield come to Valley Parade.

Manager Parkinson said: “It is a case of having to strike the right balance. Of course, we need to be organised in terms of preparing the lads for the next game. But, equally, we need to keep their legs fresh.

“Travelling takes it out of you. And all the tactics and information in the world about the next opposition are no good if players can’t run.

“We have to make sure the players work hard when we are on the training pitch but also rest at other times. On Thursday, some of the lads had a light day after putting in a lot of effort against Northampton in an attempt to keep them fresh.

“Results always help and looking at the players, they can’t wait to get out there against at Burton.”

City may be racking up the miles at the moment but they will, at least, head to Burton in confident mood courtesy of Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Northampton.

Parkinson added: “Tuesday night was a very solid and disciplined performance. We spoke to the lads before the game about the need to cope with having five games in a row away from home.

“It is not ideal but something we have to live with and we started in an impressive fashion against Northampton.

“We want to show a consistency in our performance across this run of games and that was a good start. The discipline of the team was excellent from start to finish, even if we could maybe have killed the game off earlier.

“Northampton asked a lot of us and that made the victory that bit sweeter.”