BILLY Clarke admits City will have wasted their time in the Checkatrade Trophy if they do not get to Wembley.

The Bantams head to Cheltenham tonight for their delayed third-round tie – three wins away from a possible appearance in April's final.

Clarke will be on the bench after nearly nine weeks out with a torn calf.

The striker, who had scored six times before the injury, is no fan of a competition that has been panned nationally.

Yet as he gets some minutes into his legs, Clarke believes City can get past the League Two hosts and book a quarter-final slot against Oxford.

He said: "It's pretty much a waste of time unless you get to the final but it's not a million miles from Wembley now. You've got to win three more games, so we're going to take it seriously.

"It will be tough, because they've been scoring fairly freely the past couple of games, and obviously it will be a bit of a 'minutes' thing for myself and Hans (James Hanson) with his calf. But the overall picture is that we want to win and progress."

Clarke has not kicked a ball since City thumped Rochdale in mid-November and his recovery has been a drawn-out process.

He is now confident of building up his match fitness again and regaining the form he showed before the injury.

Clarke said: "I'm not expecting it to happen straight away. I haven't really trained a lot fully. But I'll have a bit of a work-out tonight and see where I'm at. Hopefully I can shake off the cobwebs.

"It's been very frustrating because I always thought it would be right by the following week. But after four or five weeks, we had to reassess. It was fine day to day but whenever I went to stretch or something, I could feel it.

"I've watched a lot of football and it was good for the first couple of games but after that I've just wanted to play. We're still going well, so I'm coming back into a strong team in a good position."

New signings Alex Jones and Alex Gilliead are both cup-tied as City look to bounce back from Saturday's flat display at Shrewsbury.

Assistant boss Kenny Black, who watched Cheltenham thrash Leicester under-21s 6-1 in the Trophy last week, said: "When you've had a disappointment, these players have usually responded in the right manner.

"We can put that Shrewsbury game to one side and look forward to proceeding in this tournament. We're three games away from Wembley and that would be a great day out for the supporters if we could get there.

"There's obviously one eye on Saturday's league game with Millwall but it's not the first time we've played Saturday and Tuesday. We're in the knock-out stages now and it's a first-team fixture. We've got an experienced squad here."

City (possible): Sattelmaier, Darby, McArdle, Knight-Percival, Kilgallon, Marshall, Dieng, Devine, Law, Hiwula, Hanson.