Richie Smallwood says Bradford City must find more goals to produce run needed for League Two play-offs

Wednesday's Football League Trophy semi-final defeat at home to Wycombe Wanderers highlighted the problem in the most painful manner imaginable.

Unperturbed by a sticky surface referee Tom Reeves looked closely at before allowing the game to be played, the Bantams dominated their higher-division opponents, making 19 chances.

With top-scorer Cook suspended, all went begging. The Chairboys, by contrast, had their first shot on target after 80 minutes and substitute Matt Butcher scored from their second, after a Sam Stubbs error in stoppage time, to set up a Wembley final against Peterborough United.

Captain Smallwood says there are lessons to learn if his side want to make up the six-place and two-point gap to Harrogate Town, seventh with a game in hand.

"He's a big loss,” Smallwood said of Cook. “We only achieved things last season because of him and he would have probably scored on Wednesday but he got sent off (in the quarter-finals).

"We've all got to chip in with goals – midfielders, Gilly (Alex Gilliead)'s got three this season, defenders have got to be scoring and our set pieces aren't good enough, the deliveries (many of which come from Smallwood), we're not attacking the right areas, not getting away from our men, too many free headers out of the box... we've got to come up with ideas to score more goals and take the burden off Cookie.

"It seems when he doesn't score, no one does.

"We created good chances (on Wednesday) and to be fair to their keeper (Max Stryjek), I thought he did well and held onto things. The shots were a little bit soft, I would say, and a lot of them weren't on target when they should have been because we were in good positions. We've got to be more clinical."

Cook has scored 13 of Bradford's 41 league goals this season.

Bradford are at Barrow on Saturday having won their last three league games. Their longest winning streak of 2023-24 is just four.

"The lads were down after Wednesday's game, but they can't be too down for long because we've got a big game on Saturday and we've got to use that as fuel now to try and achieve something," said former Hull City midfielder Smallwood.

"Of late we've been pretty good, putting points on the board, and we're back within touching distance.

"Winning runs put you up the table but you've just got to keep going. Three wins is not enough, it's got to be right, nine, 10 wins in a row.

"I hope we can do that. You never know in this league if you get a bit of momentum and a bit of confidence.

"We've got the basics and the foundations. We've got to try and go there and play like we did on Wednesday. That will be the aim.

"Walking off the pitch that's all their lads and their manager said: 'If I've ever seen a smash-and-grab, that was it.'

"We didn't need them to tell us.

"The lads can be proud of how we played against what are normally a League One play-offs side who have been in the Championship of late.

"The last week has helped us refocus and brought it home that we can't afford too many more lapses.

"Once you get past Christmas and over the hill the games come thick and fast and before you know it you're in March and the season finishes in April.

"Hopefully the other week was the start of our run."