BRADFORD (Park Avenue) manager Mark Bower does not believe his side's performance deserved the 3-0 defeat they suffered at Spennymoor Town.

A Mark Anderson brace condemned Avenue to their seventh defeat in their last 10 league games and they are now eight points adrift at the bottom of the Vanarama National League North.

Despite a bright start where both sides exchanged big opportunities, once Rob Ramshaw's first half strike went in, the visitors struggled to respond.

Bradford seemed deflated and produced a disappointing second half display which the sixth-placed side capitalised on.

Bower is adamant that his team were better than the three-goal defeat looks and is proud that his players fought until the end.

He said: "I thought it was a very harsh scoreline on us, it definitely didn’t feel like a 3-0.

"We had some fantastic chances in the game, probably as many if not more than them, but on the day they took theirs and we didn’t take ours.

"That first goal is always important in games, especially when you are coming away from home and you are bottom of the league.

"We have played a team who are in the play-offs with aspirations of going up, it is going to be tough when you go behind.

"We came out second half and they sat right off us, let us keep the ball and frustrated us when we tried to break them down, then they picked us off on the break.

"We have not quite been good enough today in both boxes, its just that little bit of quality in and around the box which won it for them.

"It was not like we got outplayed, we went toe-to-toe with them and the 3-0 flatters them."

It was not only the defeat that caused Bower a headache though, as he lost four of his key first team members through injury.

Although, the Bradford boss was pleased with the performance of his new goalkeeper signing, Tom Nicholson, and is hopeful that his sidelined number one can return soon.

He added: "Tom (Nicholson) did all right. He was talking to his back four and he couldn’t do much with the goals.

"Joe (Green, Avenue's injured regular keeper) might be available at the back end of this week, we will see how that is.

"Unfortunately, we signed Reece Staunton and he got in touch this morning saying he is suffering with flu and is unable to play so it was a last-minute change on how we wanted to play.

"We lose Adam Nowakowski with a slight hamstring and Mitch Lund seized his back up a bit in the first half, then Oli Johnson felt a problem in his groin at the start of the second half.

"Before we got to 50 minutes, we had lost four players. We have got a lot of games coming up so it is not what we needed."