Having suffered their first defeat in eleven games at the weekend, The Shots will be looking to put defeat behind them on Monday afternoon when they travel up north, but there will need to be a marked improvement in the performance if the side are to return to Hampshire with anything but defeat.
With the Bantams fighting to confirm their League Two survival after another disappointing season, things will be far from a formality for Dean Holdsworth’s men and with only an outside mathematical chance of making the play-offs remaining, the players will have to dig deeper and not just rely on professional pride as the season draws to a close.
The Shots enter the match in 14th place in League Two with 57 points from 43 games, while Bradford are four places lower in 18th with 48 points from the same amount of games.
Shots Team News
Having suffered defeat against relegation battlers Burton Albion at the weekend, the Shots boss will have his work cut out once again ahead of the match as he tries to prepare his men for another such challenge against City and speaking to the Premium Shots ahead of the match he said: ”We didn’t get anywhere near where we’ve been and that’s the disappointing aspect. I don’t want to overreact as they [the players] have been fantastic for the last ten games and what is key now is that we don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to what was a poor result for us and the standard we have got to, we can get back to on Monday.
”These things happen in football and there’s no good feeling sorry for ourselves, we’ll get straight back to doing the job.
”We’ll look forwards to playing Bradford, it should be a big crowd there and I’ll be expecting to face a team fighting for their lives and it will be another tough game but we’ll be ready for it.”
Anthony Charles was absent from the squad which suffered defeat against Burton on Saturday following a bout of sickness so missed out on making his 350th career appearance so the boss will be waiting to see if his captain is feeling any better ahead of the match. Other than Jack Randell [broken leg] and Reece Connolly [on loan at Dorchester Town], he is expected to be able to chose from a full squad once again.
Ben Harding is looking to earn his 200th career appearance having remained on the bench at the weekend.
Shots from: Jamie Young, Mikhael Jaimez-Ruiz, Ben Herd, Luke Guttridge, Anthony Straker, Darren Jones, Anthony Charles, Ben Harding, Danny Hylton, Manny Panther, Aaron Morris, John Halls, Peter Vincenti, Clayton Fortune, Jermaine McGlashan, Wade Small, Alex Rodman, Damian Spencer, Adam Mekki and Tim Sills.
The Opposition
A weekend defeat at promotion hopefuls Accrington Stanley did little to ease Bradford’s relegation worries as Jackson’s side continue to look over their shoulders with just a four point safety cushion separating them from Barnet, and victory over The Shots will go a long way to easing their minds but Jackson told his side's official website: ”It has clearly been a bad day for us – a bad performance.
”The first half was especially dreadful, absolutely dreadful. No one can take any credit out of that performance as far as I’m concerned, particularly from the first 45 minutes.
”We still need one more win and we need to get it from one of these last three games. If we play like we did today then we simply won’t get it.
”We will be back in training tomorrow (Sunday) and looking to prepare properly to enable us to get something from the Aldershot game, which has now become a massive game for us.
”We don’t have many options to change things around but we have to regroup from this and make sure we don’t panic.
”We know that we need to get a win from somewhere and we will be hoping to do it against Aldershot on Monday.
Steve Williams only managed forty-five minutes of the weekend's defeat against Accrington Stanley following a week's illness while James Hanson and Omar Daley were both withdrawn during the second half but should all be fit to play, but Tom Adeyemi [thigh] and Shane Duff [back] are both major doubts and injury hit Simon Ramsden [thigh] is out for the remainder of the season.
Bradford City from: Jon McLaughlin, Lloyd Saxton, Lenny Pidgeley, Chris Elliot, Luke O’Brien, Michael Flynn, Luke Oliver, Omar Daley, Tommy Doherty, Gareth Evans, Jake Speight, Scott Dobie, Steve Williams, Leon Osborne, Lewis Hunt, James Hanson, Luke Dean, Jonathan Worthington, Ryan Harrison, Lee Bullock, David Syers, Chibuzor Chilaka, Kevin Ellison, Louis Horne, Robbie Threlfall, Darren Stephenson and Adam Robinson.
- You can visit the official Bradford City website here.
Taking Charge
Scott Mathieson will be taking charge of the match and will be assisted by Matthew Bristow and Ricky Wootton. Alf Greenwood is the fourth official.
Weather Forecast
The BBC weather forecast for the match given as sunny intervals with highs of 18°C.
Ticket News
Tickets for the match are set at:
Adult seats: £20.
Seniors seats: £14.
Under 16’s seats: £12.
The match is not all-ticket and supporters can pay on the turnstiles on the day.
Please note: Bradford City have a stadium policy in place which refuses admission for any child in the Under 2 age range.
Other News
- BBC Radio Surrey
Supporters unable to make the match can hear live coverage from the match on BBC Radio Surrey (on 104.6 fm) which is brought to you by Gavin Denison.
Supporters are reminded that there is no internet coverage of this match.