MICHAEL Collins hopes City’s first pre-season friendly tonight will be worth the wait.

With the Farsley game called off late, the traditional visit to Guiseley represents the opening chance to see the Bantams in action under their new coach.

Collins has already stressed how seriously he wants his squad to take their warm-up programme – and is looking for evidence of that at Nethermoor against the Conference North opposition.

He said: “You do all the hard work in pre-season and training but there’s nothing that can replicate a game for players.

“It will be good for them to get out there and have a feel for it and dust the cobwebs off.

“We want to lay a little marker down and let the fans know what we’re about from minute one.”

City are expected to give most of the squad some game time and supporters will hope to see the summer recruits in action.

Ryan McGowan, Jake Reeves and Alex Jones will also be keen to get involved after missing the end of last season through injury.

Collins added: “They’ve looked fine but we’ll just have to monitor them to ease their way back in.

“We’ll decide on who might need a little bit more work or who’s ready to go straight in for a run-out. We’ll see if anyone has got an underlying issue that we need to be mindful of.

“For me as a head coach, it’s always good to have those headaches about what we’re going to go with.

“You want as many players out there as possible and at the moment we’ve got that. It’s good to see a healthy squad and everybody enjoying it.

“But we’ve got to be mindful. The aim of pre-season is to make sure that as many as you possibly can get through it fit and healthy and ready for that first league game.”

One-time City trainee Jon Worsnop could line up against his old club after rejoining Guiseley for a third time. The 35-year-old former Avenue keeper has been playing for Southport.