James Meredith is convinced City’s back four can ride the latest stunning injury blow.

Tuesday’s clean-sheet win over Plymouth was marred by the sight of John Egan being stretchered off with a badly-broken leg.

The on-loan Sunderland defender goes under the knife over the weekend and is not expected to kick a ball again this season.

It is another setback for the Bantams backline, who have already lost Luke Oliver for the rest of the campaign and Andrew Davies until February.

Meredith himself missed the Exeter game with a hip flexer problem, a result of the punishing playing schedule.

The left back said: “It was disappointing to lose that but we came back well against Plymouth. It got pretty scrappy towards the end but we held on strong. They tried to put us under the cosh and bully our young back four but it didn’t work.

“It was upsetting to see John injured and the lads could hear the cries when he was on the ground. But we came together as a team.

“It’s incredible the amount of long-term injuries the centre halves are picking up. But the manager’s done well to make the adjustments and now we’re kicking on as a team again.”

Carl McHugh slotted back in the middle after Egan’s departure and he is ready to resume his partnership with Rory McArdle.

Meredith believes the current back four – which shut out Wigan for two hours in the Capital One Cup last month – is capable of maintaining City’s miserly defensive form of late.

He added: “We’ve done very well considering all that’s happened and hopefully now we can find some consistency with the players in that back four. We want to find that rhythm of keeping clean sheet after clean sheet.”