GARY Bowyer insists it’s good to talk in City’s relegation fight.

The Bantams boss has been encouraging his players to join in and offer their views to the squad.

As they prepare for tomorrow’s huge tussle with Oxford, another side currently in the League One drop zone, Bowyer wants the group to have their say on what must be done to stay up.

He said: “The lads have been terrific in the way they’ve contributed in the meetings we’ve had.

“They are coming up with ideas themselves as well. That’s important and something I encourage.

“It shows that they care and they are all looking at different ways in which we can try to gain an advantage.

“I hear a lot in football that there are no leaders or talkers any more – and also in society.

“But if we don’t encourage them to talk in a meeting, then how do you develop that?

“You can’t just stand there telling them this and that, you have to give them some sense of responsibility and accountability.”

Bowyer opened the floor to the players yesterday as they went through the Luton loss and talked about areas they need to brush up on for the survival showdown at the Kassam Stadium.

“I was impressed with how they went about it, particularly because there were one or two things that I highlighted we could improve on,” he added.

“But rather than me telling them, I questioned them as to what they thought and there was a healthy conversation.

“You had defenders saying ‘I should have done this’ and a midfielder saying ‘well, I could have helped you out there’. The noise straight away was brilliant.

“Now you’re getting some accountability and hopefully then that carries out on to the pitch.

“If that scenario happens again, we’ve got to prove that we’ve learned from it.

“The role of the manager is to facilitate that and encourage everybody. That’s how I like to work and I think players buy into that.

“But we’ve got to get there quickly because we haven’t got much time. The more they can do that and contribute, they might come up with something that I’ve not seen.”

Bowyer stresses that nobody will be side-tracked by other results in the congested dogfight at the bottom end of the table.

“The focus here now is completely on Oxford,” he said.

“We can’t control the other factors so we’re not going to waste time doing that. We must concentrate on ourselves and produce the performances.

“It’s important we build on the two games we’ve had so far. The mood in the camp is very good.

“On day one, I drew out the boundaries of what I expect from the players.

“I reiterated that yesterday. We will fight for every ball in every minute that’s available to try and get us the victory this weekend and try and get us out of the bottom four.”