Taylor calls on Bradford City to overcome fear factor

6:40am Friday 3rd September 2010

By Simon Parker

Peter Taylor will send out City to conquer their home jitters tomorrow with the warning: Don’t look for any sympathy from me.

The Bantams boss expects a strong response against Port Vale after their previous poor Valley Parade showings.

Taylor has been pleased with what he has seen in training since the Southend loss but the acid test will come in front of the home fans.

He said: “I don’t want anything to change here. We’ve got 11,000 people watching us, which is brilliant for the club.

“I’m sure that’s why we’ve got certain people here because they wanted to play in front of a crowd like that. Now it’s up to the players to handle that.

“I’m not going to feel sorry for them that they are under pressure. They’ve got to deal with that.”

Flat home displays against Stevenage and Southend have caused concern among supporters and City are already nine points off the leaders after just four games.

Taylor said: “I actually think performance is more important than result. If I was a supporter, I’d want to see Bradford City run around more than Port Vale.

“And as a manager, I want to come off the pitch saying we deserved to get something out of that.

“I don’t want to say we deserved to get beaten because we were nervous and didn’t perform like I had to do last week.

“It’s only our fifth league game, so there’s nothing crazy in that situation, but supporters want to see a team that are desperate to do well.

“We’ve worked on quite a lot on the training field and had some good meetings to talk about standards and preparation.

“If we can work very hard as a group, I still think we’ve got a good chance of doing well.”

Jake Speight is poised for his first start after impressing coming off the bench in the last two matches but few others are certain of their place.

Shane Duff could return to the heart of defence, while Taylor also insisted that club captain Zesh Rehman is very much in his plans.

Rehman, who was linked with a move away from City in the summer, captained the side against Preston but was also left out last Friday.

Taylor said: “He’s a fantastic professional and probably unlucky not to be playing at the minute.

“But if I carried on changing everything, people would keep saying that I changed the team all the time.

“In the games we’ve played, Zesh has done well and not done well; Luke Oliver has done well and not done well.

“Shane Duff had his best game against Torquay and for my own reasons I decided not to put him back in (to play Southend) because I thought Luke and Steve Williams looked a very good partnership against Preston and deserved another chance.

“We do need two players for every position and we’ve got that with the centre halves.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t rate Zesh and he might play tomorrow. All the centre halves have got different strengths.”