CITY must cut out the defensive "sloppiness" that is threatening to undermine their season.

The Bantams have gone two months without a clean sheet and have let in more goals than second-bottom Rochdale.

They have conceded 39 so far – three times as many as leaders Wigan and almost double play-off rivals Scunthorpe.

City go to Rotherham tonight hoping the atmosphere of a Yorkshire derby will help dig them out of a rut of three defeats on the bounce.

Stuart McCall insists the best way to do that is to stop gifting goals to opponents.

"The poor goals we're conceding are doing us in from collecting points," said McCall.

"They are poor, basic errors. It's just down to sloppiness and there's no excuse for that.

"It's easier said than done but we've got to cut them out. It's not as if teams are peppering our goal and battering us and the goalie's coming off week in, week out with man-of-the-match awards.

"That makes it doubly frustrating because we're limiting teams for chances. To give us a chance to win games, we've got to cut out the errors."

McCall was unhappy with the manner of the first two Bristol Rovers goals on Saturday as City blew a half-time lead. That followed on from the ones Northampton scored the previous week, which he felt were also avoidable.

The Bantams boss said: "If teams are scoring really good goals, you hold your hand up. But these are poor.

"As a unit defensively, we've actually been solid in the main. But we've got to iron out giving soft goals away.

"Look at Saturday. The first save Rouven (Sattelmaier) has had to make was the one he tipped over the bar – and then we defended the corner really poorly.

"The second goal was poor on a lot of fronts. Look at the two for Northampton and go back to the Wimbledon game.

"They all came from errors and we've got to eliminate that because we're giving teams lifelines."

McCall believes his resources are set to increase before the transfer deadline next Wednesday night, although City are unlikely to bring anyone in before facing the Millers.

The injury picture will also start to ease. There is an outside chance that Adam Chicksen might be included in the squad and Adam Thompson is also expected back.

Colin Doyle is in training again with the other keepers and is not far off a comeback.

McCall said: "I'm very confident that in the next couple of weeks, we'll be far stronger. We'll have three or four new faces in the building and two or three back from injury.

"That will give the squad some strength in depth and that's what we need – but we've still got to go out there tonight with a strong focus.

"If you keep looking back, you'll never go forward. There are 54 points to go for and we've got to aim to win half of them.

"You go through periods like this and it's how quickly you can come out the other side.

"We've lost a lot of games compared to last year. But so long as you're winning over 50 per cent, you're fine – we've got to try to maintain that until the end of the season."

Rotherham, who beat Portsmouth with a stoppage-time winner on Saturday, are unbeaten in eight games. Victory would lift them above Charlton into the play-offs right behind the Bantams.

McCall said: "I thought they would definitely be top six at the start of the season and I'm sure they still believe they will be.

"I saw their game from Saturday. It was a justified result in the end, although Portsmouth defended terrifically well.

"We'll have to do that at times. But there is a balance, not just to cut out the errors and defend strongly as we have done for large periods, but also making sure we carry a threat to give them problems."