Saturday 14 November 2009
Coca-Cola League 2
Bradford City vs AFC Bournemouth

A warm welcome to Eddie Howe, his Bournemouth players, the staff and supporters for this afternoon's game.

I watched them last week at Chesterfield and they looked a very strong outfit. They were excellent and fully deserved the victory.

Bournemouth are having a great season so far and we know this is going to be a tough challenge for us.

They have also had a blank week while we had the excitement of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. As well as the tension of the evening, the game on Tuesday was played in sapping conditions so we've had to rest up well to be ready and raring to go again today.

But obviously coming through like we did has given everyone a huge lift. It's added some real excitement to our season and we can take that huge positive into this afternoon's game.

By now we will know who we are playing in the northern area semi-finals. I was asked who I fancied playing next but all we really wanted was another home tie.

I remember getting to the cup quarter-finals playing for Bradford and losing at Luton. That was probably the nearest chance we've had.

But we're in the last eight and Wembley is in sniffing distance now.

We know we were not good enough in the first half against Port Vale. We've got an honest set of lads and they knew they had under-performed.

Sometimes we expect too much from this team but they are much better than the first half showed.

I did tell them that getting to Wembley couldn't mean that much if that's how they perform. But they came out in the second half and upped their game and put in a really energetic display.

We changed it round and brought on Brando and Paddy O'Brien. We put Flynny up top which made more impact while James and Zesh competed really well behind him.

We were really light in that area with no Stephen O'Leary, Rammers on Bully and I needed a defensive enforcer who would track runners.

I thought Zesh did well in there, winning lots of tackles for us. He was strong and covered lots of ground.

When it came to the penalties, I wasn't sure it was the right thing to change ends and do them in front of the Kop.

Last time we did it the other end and that proved lucky for Easty, so I wondered if it might make a difference changing things. But now he's got two lucky ends!

It was a good start to this important run of three games here and we'll be looking to build on that. And hopefully we will also have a couple of bodies back in contention to give us a few more options.

Enjoy the game and get behind the lads as always.

Stuart McCall