Saturday 20 October 2007
Coca-Cola Football League 2
Bradford City vs Darlington

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Darlington manager Dave Penney, his players, staff and supporters who are here this afternoon.

Dave has got good experience and has done well in his managerial career. And we're in no doubt that this will be a tough game against a good side that he has got together.

He's got Darlington going in the right direction at the moment. They don't concede many goals and score lots so we will have our work cut out ending this run that we're on.

The result at Morecambe left me sick to the stomach. Their winning goal literally knocked the stuffing out of me.

But we looked through the game again and if you count the number of acceptable scoring chances, we've had two or three times more than them.

We scored a goal at the right time just before half-time and prior to them coming back and getting an equaliser, Omar had a clear chance to make it 2-0 which would have been game over.

Even then we came stronger again in the last 15 minutes and had three good chances before their goal which was a real sickener.

We've got to learn to make better decisions in the last third of the pitch. When to dribble, when to pass, when to shoot and when you are in on goal, can we put it in the corner and make it difficult for the keeper.

We've taken great support there, bounced back to be the stronger side in the last 15 minutes and the manner in which we lose the goal is so difficult to take.

We work on finishing and getting in the right areas and looking at Friday, we've got to accept we made wrong decisions. We've shot when we should have passed and tried to dribble when we should have slipped somebody in - we're choosing the wrong options.

It's a concern that we're not killing off teams. Look back through the games we've had and the number of good scoring opportunities where we've either not hit the target or the keeper has made a good save. If you make the right decisions and take the chances we are making then we should be minimum mid-table.

Any neutral watching our training sessions this week, you would have thought we were in the top four of the league. The application, desire and play of the squad was excellent.

These are tough times but we know that the only people who can turn this situation round are ourselves.

You don't have to be Einstein to work out that we need to get a result. We've got to go out there this afternoon and show character.

With the crowd here, we have to show that spirit and fight, and when the chances do come, see if we can take them.

Remember, we're all one team. Together we can be successful.

Enjoy the game and shout for the lads,

Stuart