Bradford City urged to turn cup form into points (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bradford City urged to turn cup form into points

7:00am Friday 27th August 2010 in

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Peter Taylor wants City to deliver another dose of the Carling Cup spirit at home to Southend tonight.

Taylor hailed the display in Tuesday’s extra-time loss to Preston as the best so far.

And he expects his team to turn that into three points when his home-town club visit Valley Parade.

The City boss said: “I want to see a repeat of that, not a repeat of the first ten minutes of Torquay or certain things that happened against Stevenage.

“I want to see us play with more quality more times than not.

“They have got to take a lot of pleasure from the way they played against Preston. I know the supporters got their money’s worth.

“I don’t really look at websites but my daughter tells me that people were quite pleased with what they saw.

“We’ve got to keep that going now and let’s go and put in a good run.”

Tom Adeyemi and Gareth Evans have both shaken off knocks from midweek and Robbie Threlfall is back from suspension, leaving Taylor with plenty of options to pick from. He predicted there will be some unhappy faces.

“There were players left out after good performances against Torquay who were thinking they would probably be starting tonight.

“But I’ve got to say that I might have changed my mind on certain things because there were some very good displays on Tuesday, the best so far by some of the players.

“It’s a very hard selection this time and I’ve got to leave some good players out. But that means we’ll have a healthy season.”

Struggling Southend, who were relegated last season, have had a year of fighting financial fires. Taylor has huge sympathy for the club he grew up supporting and later played for and managed.

“The most important thing is that the club remains,” he added. “You don’t want to go into administration.

“I think the chairman is a very shrewd man, he knows what he’s doing and he’s always come up with the money when it’s been needed, whether it be a tax bill or whatever.

“He knows it’s hard work at the minute because of the current (financial) climate but I’m sure his plans are still in place.

“If they get that new stadium with a big supermarket chain behind them, then it will be a very different football club.”

New Shrimpers boss Paul Sturrock has hastily cobbled together a squad with 17 summer signings after 13 left. They have failed to win in the league so far but took Premier League Wolves to extra-time on Tuesday before going down 2-1 to a last-minute goal.

Taylor said: “Let’s be honest, League Two performances will be more inconsistent than the Premier boys, where nine times out of ten you know what you’re going to get.

“Not being unkind but we’re probably 18-handicapper golfers who hit a great shot every now and again, then mess up the next one.

“That’s how you are even if you’ve got your players all the time. If you’ve got them in late as Paul has, then they are probably going to be even more inconsistent.

“Steve Tilson did brilliantly there and I always said whoever replaced him would have to be experienced and Paul Sturrock is that.

“It’s not an easy situation but hopefully there have been a few more guarantees on the new players that Paul has signed.

“But we’re expecting a tough game. We saw them play against Wolves the other night and they did exceptionally well.”

Southend are still looking for their first away win of the year. The last victory on the road was at Leyton Orient on December 28.

The visitors have stayed in the north since Tuesday and prepared for tonight by using Huddersfield’s training ground.

Former City keeper Rhys Evans is likely to be on the bench on his return to Valley Parade.