Stead and Bradford rue missed chance against Reading

The teams will have to do it all again at the Madejski Stadium after a hard-fought clash ended in a 0-0 draw in West Yorkshire.

After the highs of victories over Chelsea and Sunderland, Bradford were left frustrated, with Stead saying: “It was a dogfight.

“We are disappointed because we feel we can do better.

“In the second half we pinned them in for long spells but we needed a goal. We limited them to a few chances.

“We’re still in the hat but there’s a little bit of disappointment that we haven’t gone through. It’s half a job.

“We’ve still got to go and do the business down there. There’s great belief in the players and the staff and we’ll give it everything we’ve got.”

Manager Phil Parkinson was more upbeat, saying: “We’re still in the hat so we’re pleased with that.

“You’ve got to give Reading credit, they came and made it difficult. It was a cagey old affair. I thought our lads did excellently in a different type of way than Sunderland.

“We had to be very professional and wait for the moment to arrive. Unfortunately it didn’t. In the second half we had the momentum but we didn’t have that touch of class in and around the box.

“We look forward to the replay. Everyone will be expecting Reading to win that one but you never know what can happen on the night. We know they’ll approach it differently and look to open up.

“When we went to Stamford Bridge, it was a day out, no one expected us to get through.”

Reading set out their stall early on to be hard to beat but manager Steve Clarke knows the job is far from done yet.

He said: “We came here and decided to roll up our sleeves. We knew we’d have to battle, fight for every second ball and see if we could produce something.

“We hit the post twice and on another day we could have nicked something. But it was a fair result.

“There was never really a moment where I was too worried. We were in the game from the first minute, and we were determined to get them back to our place if that was the best we could do.

“I think both teams will fancy their chances so let’s get it on.”