Phil Parkinson has told City fans to trust him as he continues to chop and change the team.

Tomorrow’s derby clash with York will be City’s 48th game of the season – the same as Chelsea, who have played the most of any team in the country.

It is a record number of matches for the Bantams by this stage and there are still another 13 after that to go.

That is why Parkinson will continue to rotate his options as he looks to launch a strong push in the final two months.

“I’m going to keep freshening up the team between now and the end of the season,” said the City boss.

“Supporters might think ‘why isn’t he in the team when he’s played well last week’ but they are just going to have to trust me and the coaching staff.

“We need to play fresh legs every game and it might be the case that some players are best utilised from the bench.

“We’ve played an unprecedented amount of games and people will have to live with me on the team selection. I would be very surprised if the majority of our supporters don’t understand that.

“I will be up front with them. I am going to make changes because we need to keep freshening it up.”

Parkinson started with six different players from Wembley for the 1-1 draw against Dagenham at Valley Parade in midweek.

James Hanson and Nahki Wells were among those benched as he reverted to the Garry Thompson and Andy Gray partnership that had worked at Wycombe and Wimbledon in the previous two league outings.

But the pairings were swapped round midway through the second half and Hanson forced home the late equaliser – with a touch from Wells in the build-up – to claim his ninth goal of the campaign.

Parkinson said: “I thought James was excellent when he came on. He won every header and I was really pleased for him to get the goal.”

The Bantams boss was encouraged by his side’s fightback against opponents who always raise their game against them.

He admits that will be the case even more with other teams now because of City’s new-found fame from their incredible Capital One Cup success.

“Teams all want to beat Bradford and we’ve got to accept that and deal with it,” he said.

“Dagenham’s players turned up on Wednesday and they were taking pictures of the ground before the game.

“It’s got even worse because of the exposure we’ve had. People have seen our players on the telly and they want to go out and get the best of them.

“So teams are going to be up for a fight and we’ve got to match them. But I thought we did that and put in a really committed performance.”

The victory at Wycombe remains City’s only one in the league since Boxing Day. Next opponents York, who last beat Burton on New Year’s Day, have now gone ten games without a win.

But Parkinson was happy with the performance in his side’s first appearance after the cup final.

He said: “We dominated the game in the main. But getting that first goal at home has been a bit of a problem for us.

“Then they go ahead with their first shot on target. So you’ve got to give the lads credit to keep driving and going to the end.

“We’ve hit the bar from three yards out, (Rory) McArdle had a header wide in the first half and (Michael) Nelson’s headed one back across goal that the keeper has clawed off the line.

“On another day, we would have probably scored from at least one of them. But we didn’t give up and that was a very important point for us.

“Every game from now on is a big one and now we’ve got a local derby. I saw York at Rotherham and they played well but we’re ready to move on and go again.”