CITY’S players have been deliberately shielded from speculating on the club’s potential takeover.

Phil Parkinson has known about Gianni Paladini’s interest for almost two months but kept tight-lipped with the squad until the news became public last week.

He scotched suggestions that the recent dip in results had been down to off-field uncertainty in the dressing room.

“We kept it away from the players until it came out in the media,” said the City boss. “None of them had any idea.

“Julian (Rhodes) had told me about it but I kept it quiet. There was only myself and Steve Parkin who knew and we didn’t tell anybody.

“Obviously it’s out now but it doesn’t affect us at all. We can’t do anything about that.

“We’ve just got to concentrate on being professional every single day we come into the training ground. That’s what we’ve done.”

Billy Clarke, whose late equaliser at Sheffield United on Saturday ended a run of three straight defeats, added: “We don’t really know enough about it to start speculating. It would be absolutely pointless for us to start saying this or that is going to happen.

“I don’t think it’s affecting us at the moment and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

The T&A understands that the process is not as far advanced as has been claimed and rumours over the weekend that a deal with the Italian is almost complete are wide of the mark.

But the club will want a decision done by the middle of next month at the latest to prevent the talks holding up their plans over the summer.

City’s point from the Yorkshire derby restored pride after the home battering by League One Bristol City. But it did confirm that they cannot join the Blades in the play-offs.

Parkinson admitted the mental and physical strain of balancing the league campaign with their improbable charge to the FA Cup quarter-finals had taken its toll.

He added: We’ve gone with a small squad. Maybe in hindsight around that cup run we should have got two or three players in. We’ve gone with a small squad.

“But we had such a good tight-knit spirit among the boys and I just wanted to keep that together.

“It’s easy to look back but look at any team in the history of football in the lower leagues (who has had a similar cup run) and it does affect you without doubt.

“Two years ago, we had a terrific run to the Capital One Cup final and managed to get promotion. But perhaps we’d have finished in the top three and not had to go through the play-offs.

“It does have an effect but we wouldn’t swap it. You can’t swap the exposure the city of Bradford and this team have had against Chelsea in particular and in the other high-profile games.

“You love to have everything in football but sometimes it’s not possible.”

Andrew Davies made a confident return from injury but Rory McArdle will miss the next two games for his second red card of the season.

Parkinson said: “With 30 seconds to go, I thought the ref could use his commonsense but it wasn’t to be. As soon as it happened, I saw him going to his pocket.

“But Andrew was excellent, a colossus really. He won every header and was so powerful; he gives the team a physical presence.”