Saturday 1 December 2007
FA Cup sponsored by E.ON 2nd Round
Bradford City vs Tranmere Rovers

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Ronnie Moore, his Tranmere Rovers team, staff and supporters to the Coral Windows Stadium for this afternoon's FA Cup tie.

We've got two away league games coming up at Mansfield and Chesterfield which will be tough but good ones for the fans to get to in numbers.

But this week we've been able to focus on the FA Cup and I admit I'm really looking forward to it.

We will have to be at our very best to get through because Tranmere are a good side.

I spoke to Lee Richardson at Chesterfield, who were quite unlucky to get beaten by them in the first round because Jack Lester missed a penalty. But Tranmere have got some good players for that level with Taylor, whose always scored goals, Greenacre, another formidable striker, Shuker, who is dangerous and McLaren in midfield.

They've got some good senior pros in there who have all played at a higher level than ours. And any time you're up against a team of Ronnie Moore's you know they will be naturally well organised and will fight right to the end.

I've come across Ronnie a lot when I was with Sheff U and he was at Rotherham. He's passionate about the game and has done well wherever he goes.

He knows that level well and has assembled a good strong squad. Listening to him speak the other day, they will be disappointed if they aren't in the play-offs come the end of the season.

I'm sure Tranmere will have brought a good support across with them and we will have to be on top of our game.

Hopefully we can continue how we have been doing recently at home - apart from the first half last week which was disappointing.

We're under no illusions about the task ahead but we've also got players in our squad capable of playing at a higher level and causing problems to other teams.

And at least we won't have the hassle today that we had before the Stockport game when we were all wondering if Donovan and Omar would be back from Jamaica in time. That was a nightmare.

We were expecting them in at 3pm on Friday but they were among half the side who missed a connection in Miami because of different passports.

I knew there was a problem when I saw Jon Pollard walking across the training pitch because he never comes down to training ever. It was obviously going to be bad news and then it dawned on me.

I still didn't see a problem when they were getting into Heathrow at 6am and we planned to get a nice car to drive them back. But we found out about a flight to Manchester at 8am which would get them here at a similar time.

They were all ready for that and the bags were on the plane when that got cancelled! So they had to wait for the next flight at 10am - which didn't eventually leave until 11.40.

Fortunately Mark Lawn was there at the airport to meet them and get them across and they were in the dressing room for just before 2pm.

It was hardly the best preparation for the two Jamaican lads or for us because we could do no team shape on Friday as we didn't know if they'd be back.

Sat in airports and on planes is absolutely shocking preparation but I thought the two of them did well. Though I wouldn't recommend going through that before every game!

Enjoy the match and shout for the lads,

Stuart