Phil Parkinson Looks Ahead To Tomorrow

Last updated : 10 February 2014 By Thetashkentterror

Bradford City boss Phil Parkinson spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One match against Carlisle at Brunton Park on Tuesday evening, Parkinson first looking back on the Bantams drawing 3-3 at home to Crewe on Saturday:

“After the way we played in the second-half on Saturday, with the contrast between that and the first-half, we have got to reproduce that second 45 minutes for 90 minutes, and if we do that then we will have a great chance. Really if you are making a conservative estimate we could have scored six goals in that period because we had some good chances and played some good football.

“I think playing the way we did I don’t think it mattered who we would have been up against, we would have caused anybody problems. Some fantastic crosses coming in the box, some good link-up play from our front two and we so nearly got our rewards with a winner. Obviously, we are bedding the new players in as well and I have just sat down with them and gone through the contrasting halves of the game and the reasons why the second-half was so much better.

“Seventeen crosses in the second-half and five in the first-half, now the conditions did come into that to a certain degree but there was a total difference in the positivity in our play. In football your first thought is can I be positive, can I play forward, can I run forward, and the first-half our first thought was can we play backwards. We did that too many times and too many times Crewe got everybody behind the ball and then became difficult to break down.

“I am thinking of possibly making changes for the Carlisle game. We will just have a look at that, we didn’t name the team this morning. We just worked on a few things about our play, not really about Carlisle but the way we need to play in this game. But, we have hedged our bets slightly in terms of the personnel, it gives us another 24 hours just to check everybody.

"Thankfully, Rory McArdle is looking a lot better now.  If you look at him now compared to Friday, you'd hardly believe it because it looked a real mess when he'd first done it. It definitely looks a lot better today (Monday). He is one in particular that we are giving an extra twenty-four hours to before we finally complete the team for Tuesday night."