CITY’S midfield hunt will become a matter of urgency this week following their lesson from the leaders.

With the emergency loan window open from tomorrow, Phil Parkinson will step up his search for a young livewire recruit to lift his team’s flagging fortunes.

The Bantams looked anything but potential play-off contenders in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Burton, which leaves them six points behind the top six.

Lee Evans will be available after his three-game ban for next Saturday’s equally tough visit to Peterborough and is sure to come straight back in.

But Parkinson is desperate to bring someone in to partner him in City’s central midfield.

A few targets are being considered although no one in particular. Manchester United’s James Weir has been linked but is not thought to be one of the names being looked at.

Parkinson said: “We’ve got Evo back next week which will be a bonus for us. But looking at that central midfield, we’re striving to find the best two in there.

“We’ve played Evo and Knotty (Billy Knott) at home and looked great, we had a good run with Evo and Lidds (Gary Liddle) away.

“But we need to get back to finding a partnership in the middle of the pitch.

“We’ve been looking at people but it’s getting in players who are good enough to come straight in and stake a claim.

“Had we won on Saturday, with Evans coming back we’d have had time to reassess. But we do need another player to add to the squad.”

Parkinson branded City “second best” in every department at the Pirelli Stadium where they never threatened to inflict a third loss in four on Burton. The Bantams have still not beaten any top-eight opponent this season.

“We’ve got to apologise for that performance,” he admitted.

“We know we haven’t been good enough against the top teams.

“We looked at the previous results and the way we played and tried to give the lads a game plan to give them the best chance.

“It didn’t work and I always take responsibility myself. I’m not just blaming the players but there were some poor performances.

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and come back ready at Peterborough next week.”

Parkinson defended his decision to line up with a midfield diamond and play without wingers, although Mark Marshall came on at half-time.

He said: “We haven’t done well in recent weeks against the top teams in the league, whichever four we’ve gone across the pitch with.

“We’ve started off slowly at Gillingham, Sheffield United and Walsall before.

“I’d looked at teams who’d done well against Burton and I just felt that was the right way to go against them.

“Managers change systems all the time – they go three at the back, four at the back, diamond, 4-4-2. When it doesn’t work, you obviously take responsibility for that.

“But it’s a system that worked very well for us last year when we had (James) Hanson and Jon Stead up top with Billy Knott in behind.

“I just felt it was the right way to go but it hasn’t worked so I’ve got to hold my hand up for that, as I always do.

“Too much is made of systems some times. You could equally say that playing the diamond first half we had our best clear-cut chances.

“Within any system you play, you need better performances than we showed.”