Saturday 12 January 2008
Coca-Cola Football League 2
Bradford City vs Notts County

A warm welcome to Ian McParland, his players and officials and the supporters from Notts County to this afternoon's game.

We've made a good start to the year with an away win and now we want to follow that up with one at home.

We've been up and down here this season, though that's probably the same story on our travels.

There have been home games when we deserved more but we were probably a bit fortunate to get all three points against Lincoln when we didn't play particularly well.

I thought we played a lot better in the first half against Hereford and yet finished that game with nothing to show for it.

But we got a nice result at Accrington last time out from a good second-half performance. We just need to marry that to the way we played for the first half of the Hereford game here and try to get that consistency for 90 minutes.

Notts County are one of the few teams I haven't had the chance to watch live yet, although I've seen the DVDs of some of their games.

Jakes went to watch them last week and they put in a very good performance down at Hereford in their last away game to draw 0-0. We all know how good Hereford are but, according to the reports, Notts County were disappointed not to come away with the win.

I don't know the manager Ian that well, though Jakes does from Hull City. But my door will be open after the game because he's a passionate Scotsman like myself!

I know he has been trying to get a couple of players in during the transfer window and we will find out whether he has managed to do that in time for today's game.

One player who we know all about is Spencer Weir-Daley.

He came here on loan at the end of last season and we did try to sign him during the summer.

We brought him up to the ground but in the meantime he'd spoken to Notts County. They were on his doorstep and it suited him better to go there.

But he came and we had a good chat and he was very honest about things. Good luck to him and I'm sure, like any player, he'll be looking forward to coming back to a club where he has played before and do well.

We'll have to keep a close eye on him.

They have also chipped in goals from the middle of the park through Butcher and MacKenzie and free-kicks are another area we will have to watch carefully.

Again as we always try to do, we'll inform our lads as much as we can. But I want us to carry on in the same vein as we finished against Accrington.

We've set our standards for 2008 in that second half and there's no reason why we can't look to do the same week in and week out.

Shout for the lads and enjoy the game,

Stuart