KENNY Black believes City have learned from last month’s spectacular collapse at Walsall.

The Bantams have taken ten points from a possible 12 since blowing that three-goal lead – and claimed only their second clean sheet of the season in the win over Rotherham.

Assistant boss Black said: “We showed a different side to ourselves last Saturday and it’s one that we knew the players had.

“There are many ways to get the three points and it’s not always going to be pretty football.

“We keep repeating it about the Walsall game but you go back to being 3-0 up there and I still can’t put my finger on what happened.

“We capitulated that day but it’s one of those things. I don’t think it will be the first time that’s happened in a game but I certainly hope it’s the last time for us. Whether it was a turning point or not, we’ve certainly learned a lot from it.

“You heard the grumblings at Peterborough when we were 3-0 up and they got a goal back. But last week showed we’re capable of rolling up our sleeves and seeing the game out. That will give the team confidence.”

City have suffered just one defeat so far to be nestled among League One’s early pace-setters and head to Northampton’s Sixfields Stadium tomorrow still unbeaten on their travels.

But Black and Stuart McCall are too long in the tooth to be fooled by the table.

“You only have to look at the results from last weekend to know that on any given day, any team can take points off everybody else,” said Black.

“There’s always a little dark day round the corner. There will be stages this season when we’ll have to battle like last week and we may not get that right result.

“It’s how you maintain that consistency. If we can do that, hopefully top six is okay for us.”

City boss McCall and Black were at Wigan on Tuesday to see Northampton suffer their first loss under Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

Black said: “They’ve certainly had a reaction to the new manager coming in. They are playing with a bit more confidence than they had been.

“They’ll be smarting from that defeat and people think we’re a big scalp in this division.

“If they get the same sort of level of success Jimmy achieved at Burton, Northampton will be very grateful. But it’s up to us to try to spoil his weekend and that’s what we intend to do.”