Bradford City's Keepmoat show was as good as Saturday, says Stuart McCall

A City starting line-up changed completely from the weekend success at Wanderers - featuring three debutants in Finn Cousin-Dawson, Connor Shanks and Kian Scales and another in Jorge Sikora who was starting a competitive game for the first time - produced a hard-working and disciplined performance against a first-choice Doncaster side with the game ending 0-0 at full-time.

Rovers claimed the extra bonus point in the Group F northern section match by winning 4-1 on penalties, but it did not diminish McCall's pride.

McCall said: "When I got the team sheet, I thought it would be strong. I have not got a great record here, having been done by five on the last time I was here in this cup and 3-0 last year with Scunthorpe.

"We came here against that team - their strongest side. (Ben) Whiteman has come in for (Jason) Lokilo from the side who played at Blackburn and he (Whiteman) is an excellent player and I tried to get him as a young kid when I was at Sheffield United.

"It was a great work ethic from the team with four 18-year-old's. We had to change some things (in the system) at the last minute and they stuck to the game plan.

"Sam (Hornby) has two good saves in the second half. We needed to be better with some free-kicks around the box, but we will work on that.

"But overall, I was so proud of the work ethic and a lot of the time, it was a lot of work without the ball. One or two times, we were a little bit lax, but I was as pleased as I was on Saturday."

McCall confirmed that winger Zeli Ismail missed the game as a precaution, having undergone a Coronavirus test earlier in the week after complaining of a sore throat on Sunday.

The results thankfully came back negative, but not in time for him to feature.

On the former Walsall player, who would have started otherwise, McCall added: "Unfortunately, Zeli had a sore threat. Obviously, we all get sore throats but because of the pandemic at the minute, he had an NHS test and unfortunately the results were going to be 24 hours.

"He has no temperature and felt great (on Monday) after having a bit of a sore throat. He got a negative test at six o'clock (on Tuesday), so it was too late for him to be involved, which is a shame. But you have to do the protocol. You cannot take any chances.

"But he has had a negative test and will be back training with us on Thursday."