RICHARD O’Donnell today called for a sense of perspective as City look to bounce back to winning ways.

Form has dropped off in recent weeks ahead of the Valley Parade clash with Michael Flynn’s Newport.

The Bantams have won just once in their last seven outings – although three of those were in cup ties.

They have slipped to seventh in League Two but are still only five points off leaders Swindon with a game in hand.

And O’Donnell insists they are in a good place at this stage.

The City keeper said: “You say we’ve won one in seven but in that we’ve played Shrewsbury twice and obviously Rochdale in the Leasing.com Trophy.

“Ideally we would have won more games in all competitions but seventh isn’t a bad position to be in right now and we’re not miles away from the top.

“I don’t care how the beginning and the middle of the season goes particularly as long as we’re at the top of it at the end. If we get promoted, it doesn’t matter how the season has gone.

“We’ve had a steady start and coming up to the halfway point soon. But as I keep saying, we’ve definitely got the potential to be better than we have been.

“Yes, we feel we should be higher points-wise than we are but going forward, we’re still in a good position.

“We were flying in October so it seems that we’ve come off it a bit. But when you break it down, we’re tucked in there.

“We haven’t been good enough in the last couple of games, that’s the most disappointing thing. But we’re looking forward to the Newport game to try to put that right.”

Gary Bowyer has also played down suggestions that City’s current run is anything more than a blip. The Bantams boss insists there is no need for concern with the campaign still not at the halfway point.

“We’d have liked to have gone through in the Leasing.com and the FA Cup but we didn’t,” he said. “So now we’ve got to concentrate on the league.

“Our last three league games, we’ve won one, drawn one and lost one. We need to get back to the rhythm that we were in.

“But you see how focused the team are to keep improving and doing well. Confidence is fine.

“It’s a long, long season and we’ve only played 18 games. There’s no doubt throughout the course of the season you will go through a little spell (when results aren’t good).

“If somebody had said at the end of last season when we’d been relegated that we’d be here after 18 games then we would have taken it.

“It's very early and there’s a hell of a lot of football to be played and points to play for.”