Mark Hughes says Bradford City's League Cup defeat will not affect their confidence

The Bantams were beaten 2-1 at Valley parade but far from disgraced.

They took the lead against the run of play through Andy Cook and Kian Harratt hit a post but the Championship asserted themselves to book their place in round three.

Their manager - former Blackburn player and boss Mark Hughes - viewed it all in perspective.

"It won't affect our confidence," he said. "We know we're up against a good quality side and we did as well as probably everybody expected even though we wanted to do better as a group but it wasn't to be because Blackburn were able to see the game out.

"You have to acknowledge their performance.

"They made a lot of changes but they're still a couple of leagues above us and their ability and quickness of thought was there for everybody to see."We weren't able to get as close as I would like but that was a learning experience for us - we won't face that quality at League Two level so I think that will help what we're trying to do at our level.

"Everyone put a real shift in. I didn't make too many changes, I tried to give the competition the respect it deserves and we had a go. It could have gone our way towards the end.

"I'm pleased with the effort we put in and the performance just obviously not the result. We ran a very good team very close."

Bradford's biggest fault was that they gave Rovers too much space at time.

"Looking back there were a number of fundamentals we did wrong - turning the wrong way, following the man, not the ball, being a little bit passive when balls were there to be won," said Hughes.

"I think that was just the level of respect we gave them - a bit too much on occasions when really you just need to be aggressive.

"But they moved the ball very quickly because it was difficult to do that.

"We need to anticipate things more readily.

"But they had a real go. It's been quite a hectic period but I felt they were strong enough and they were all determined to play a part.

"I've no problem with the level or the amount of effort."We went a little bit more direct late on and that caused us problems. The lads who came on did it to good effect."