Saturday 5 April 2008
Coca-Cola Football League 2
Bradford City vs Morecambe

A warm welcome to Sammy McIlroy, his players and staff and the fans from Morecambe for this afternoon's game.

Sammy has done a good job in their first season in league football and the club have established themselves in the top half of the table.

But I would still love to beat them after the disappointment of losing to a late goal when we played up there earlier in the season.

To be honest, that was probably the lowest point of my managerial career so far. It was a game I felt we should have won and had the chances to do so and then to get hit like that with a goal in the last minute was extremely difficult to take.

Hopefully we can make amends this afternoon by getting the three points in front of our own supporters although we know it won't be easy.

After the Mansfield defeat here a few weeks ago, I said that this season couldn't finish soon enough for me. I wanted to see the lads show me that they wanted to be here and I've been very pleased with the response since then.

I think we've proved over the last four or five games that we can be a match for the top teams and that's a good sign for next season.

Obviously we know there are areas where we need to strengthen for next season and we're confident of going out and doing that.

But we've played Chesterfield, Rotherham, Darlington and now Rochdale and been as good as them. Rochdale are a good side and deserve to be right up there but again I didn't think there was a lot in it on Tuesday night.

I have got to be reasonably happy with the performance and on another night we would have got something. It's disappointing to lose because I thought our chances merited a draw.

We got off to the worst possible start, giving a sloppy goal away in the first minute, but we got back into it. We were up against a side with confidence and they've got some good players - but so have we.

At half-time, I felt we were a bit unlucky not to go in on level terms.

Then we got back to 1-1 and I hoped we could go on and win like we did at Darlington - but credit to Rochdale, they upped their game and kept at it. But when you hit the bar and the post three times, it's a bit cruel.

We had not talked about the play-offs recently, although some others had, but it would have been nice if we could have gone there and won. It would have put a little bit of pressure on them but unfortunately it wasn't to be.

Remember we are all one team so give the lads a cheer.

Enjoy the game