Tuesday 29 January 2008
Coca-Cola Football League 2
Bradford City vs Shrewsbury Town

A warm welcome to Gary Peters, his players and officials and the supporters from Shrewsbury Town to tonight's game.

It's good to be back home again after two matches on the road in the last week. It seems a long time since we were last playing at the Coral Windows Stadium and it's important that we can make the most of home advantage.

We got a good three points here last time against Notts County and we will be looking to put in a similar performance this evening.

We were slightly disappointed to come away from the away games at Bury and Wrexham with a draw each time. But they will be good points providing we can follow them up with three tonight.

I was slightly satisfied with the result against Wrexham on Saturday.

Looking at their result against the MK Dons the previous week, they were buoyant and the crowd got right behind them when they went 1-0 up.

So to come back from that and get a deserved draw was good, although I still thought we could have earned more when the game opened up and became end to end.

I felt quite comfortable first half and I think it was only their second shot they scored with. Having said that we had a lot of pressure and a lot of corners but didn't really create much other than Baz's header.

But I still felt at half-time that if we scored the next goal, we could go on and win it. I thought we were controlling the game without creating chances.

It was good to see Nixy get another goal but seeing Eddie going off was a blow. You feel for him because he's just got back from being out a long time and I thought he looked good.

It was a bad gash and looked a real mess afterwards. We're probably looking at a minimum of ten days because the stitches need to stay in until Saturday.

But Eddie is desperate to play so hopefully he'll be back soon.

We're delighted to have tied up Omar on a new contract for the next three and a half years. He is enjoying his football here and we didn't want to lose him.

Every time you have a chat with other managers after games, his is always the name that crops up. And we want to keep progressing him along.

You've seen the other Jamaicans that have moved on like Damion Stewart doing well with QPR now and Jermaine Johnson at Sheffield Wednesday, who is being talked about as going even higher.

There were people enquiring about Omar, which is why we're so pleased to get this sorted.For us to tie him to a contract like this shows our commitment, as well as his to the football club.

His finishing needs to be better and he could have had half a dozen goals by now. But he's also been really unfortunate with a lot of efforts, hitting the woodwork on numerous occasions and being denied by outstanding saves.

The good thing is that he can play anywhere going forward and I'm as happy with him up front as playing on the left or right. With his great pace, trickery and unpredictability, he is always going to be dangerous and a real threat to opposition defenders.

Shout for the lads and enjoy the game,

Stuart