MARK Yeates believes today’s clash with strugglers Crewe is a bigger game for City than the televised Yorkshire derbies coming up.

The Bantams have a run of mouth-watering run of fixtures this month as they take on Barnsley and Sheffield United in front of the Sky cameras before travelling to League One leaders Bristol City.

But Yeates ranks this afternoon’s Valley Parade visit from the bottom club as their most crucial this month.

He said: “It’s not hard to get up for the Yorkshire derbies – those games take care of themselves.

“Bristol City are going to be the favourites to go up this season. They have certainly got the strongest squad.

“These are all games we’ve got to look forward to but Crewe is the biggest one.

“We know how important it is and hopefully that can be the start of a healthy run through the month.”

The visit from out-of-form Alex has added spice because of City’s current struggles at Valley Parade – where they have not won in the last four league outings.

Yeates, whose superb free-kick last week salvaged a draw against Port Vale, is desperate to get home results back on track and justify the impressive crowd figures.

The midfielder added: “Since I’ve been at the club, I’ve always said that there aren’t many grounds where you can go out and play in front of that amount of fans in League One. Some Championship clubs don’t even get that many.

“Good, bad or indifferent, as a footballer you want to play in front of big crowds. But it’s our job to send those fans home smiling.

“This week’s training has probably been the highest intensity and most workload we’ve put in for a game since we came back for pre-season. Everyone is aware of how big it is.

“Sometimes it can be nice playing Saturday then Tuesday but having the full week to work gives a different view to training. You can fully concentrate on the opposition and what you’re going to implement on the game.

“We’re really hoping we can take forward all that we’ve done this week and put it into practice.”

With only four points from the first ten games, Crewe have let in a league-high 27 goals. Boss Steve Davis accused his players of “giving up” during Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to Notts County.

Yeates is urging City to keep kicking the team while they are down.

He said: “No disrespect to Crewe but with the form they are in, it’s really down to us to get after them from minute one and make it really difficult.

“That’s what the gaffer’s been telling us all week. If we can put into practice what we’ve been doing in training this week then hopefully it should be a really positive result.”