ALEX Jones aims to finish the season as strongly as he started it after breaking his City goal duck.

Jones came off the bench to score the winner at Port Vale – the club where he had netted ten goals on loan before Christmas.

It was the 22-year-old's first for nearly three months and he hopes it signals his proper arrival as a Bantams striker.

Jones said: "It's true that I feel I'm starting again in a way. The past couple of months have been a bit frustrating for me.

"When I left Port Vale I missed the last three games because I was really ill for ten days. Then I came to Bradford and haven't managed to score.

"I could have easily heaped pressure on myself but even the gaffer said that I haven't really had a clear-cut chance.

"It would have been a different story if I'd been missing a few. I knew eventually a goal would come.

"I look at it and think this is my first full season in professional football and I'm in double figures. I'm really delighted with that.

"But I want to keep going and hopefully get more goals to help the team up the table."

Jones had last scored on December 4 for Vale against Hartlepool – but he had been on the pitch for less than two minutes when he fired the decisive goal to clinch City's first win in five games.

Stuart McCall had not expected him to play after missing that run with a hip injury but the former Birmingham man showed up well in training.

Jones said: "Of course I wanted to be on the bench, especially coming back to Vale. I always wanted to be involved.

"There's no point in risking my well-being for the sake of one game but I felt fine and thankfully came off the bench to get the winner.

"Strikers are going to go through those sort of stages in their career when they aren't going to score for a few games."

Jones rejected an offer from Vale before signing for City for an undisclosed five-figure fee. The home fans booed him on Saturday – and claimed he had used his hand with the goal.

But he suggested any contact was purely accidental and said: "I don't remember it hitting my hand and if it did, there wasn't anything intentional.

"The ball dropped, I had a touch and then swiped it, that got blocked and then I just hit it again and it was in the back of the net.

"The most important thing was to get the win. At this stage of the season it doesn't matter how. Obviously it's nice to play great every week and win 3-0 but that's not likely to happen.

"But we've shown the character we have to come back from their equaliser to win. That says a lot for the players we've got in that dressing room."

With other results going well for them, City have moved back up to fifth – and have cut the gap to the second automatic place to six points.

They now go into the home double-header against MK Dons and Peterborough looking to string a winning run together.

Jones said: "It's a good position to be in but we're not getting carried away by any means. There's a long way to go and anything can happen.

"We're just focusing on the next game, MK Dons at home, and hoping to get more points from that."