Phil Parkinson will shuffle his pack to deal with City’s most hectic spell of the season.

The Bantams face four games in 11 days over the holiday period, which starts with Saturday’s trip to fifth-placed Peterborough.

Rotherham visit Valley Parade for a much-anticipated Boxing Day derby, Swindon follow a week on Sunday before City kick off 2014 at Notts County on New Year’s Day.

With such a busy workload, Parkinson intends to make changes between matches and utilise his squad.

That will be music to the ears for the likes of Mark Yeates, Jason Kennedy and Raffaele De Vita, who have been chiefly limited to bench roles since their recruitment in the summer.

Parkinson said: “I’ve told the lads that those who haven’t played much recently will get their chances.

“Squads that have the ability to change things round during a period of games like this tend to come through them best.

“Supporters might expect (to see) different players in different games. But I’m sure they will understand that we will change things round, like we did last year.

“We have players capable of performing at this level but because we haven’t had many midweek games, there hasn’t been the opportunity to change the team around as much as we did before.

“But it’s good motivation for the squad. We have got players who are champing at the bit to show their worth in the team and they will get that chance over the next four games.”

With City going out of all three cups at the first stage, this season’s programme is nowhere near as intense as a year ago.

At this stage in 2012, the Bantams had already played 33 games – TEN more than currently. That also included six extra-times, the equivalent of another two full matches.

Parkinson added: “It’s been different without playing in midweek but it’s given us longer to prepare for each game.

“We are in a harder division now so that has certainly helped.

“But we are looking forward to this run of games over Christmas and physically we are in good shape for it.

“We’ve shown on several occasions that we keep going right to the end. Physically we are capable of doing that and it stands us in good stead for the busy period coming up.

“After Saturday we can do bits of organisation in between games. The physical work has been done in terms of preparing for this period.”