STUART McCall has banned any play-off talk from City after they slipped further away from top-seven contention.

The Bantams are four points adrift following the weekend loss at Newport – which extended their away drought to 11 games without a win.

McCall insists the only focus now must be Saturday’s Valley Parade clash with fourth-placed Plymouth.

He said: “I’ve told the players, ‘let’s forget any talk about the play-offs’. Forget having this dream about trying to get to Wembley which I keep selling.

“Go out next Saturday and do your jobs.

“We’re playing against a good Plymouth side and we’ll no doubt be underdogs. But we need to win the game so let’s get the fans at Valley Parade back behind us.”

City have now lost successive away outings under McCall – having gone ahead in both.

Newport, managed by his former Bantams skipper Michael Flynn, had not scored in their previous four league games.

But City twice failed to deal with corners as the Exiles struck twice in the space of four minutes to wipe out Clayton Donaldson's opener.

McCall admitted there is a lack of accountability which continues to hit them hard.

He added: “We knew it was coming. They weren’t great balls in the box but we got caught out.

“We can stay on the training ground until 5pm every day. But once you come out on a Saturday, the players must take responsibility.

“When you put people in the holes with men to mark and then they stand in a different position, you’ve got to take that responsibility to react. You’ve also got to talk as well.

“You don’t have to be the quickest, the strongest and the bravest to be a good defender. You need to be able to organise, concentrate and focus on your jobs.

“On the flip side, at least we’re having opportunities. You can see that we are having a go.

“But it should be a given in football to show that spirit and determination.

“Talk’s cheap. Football is about the two penalty boxes, it always has been and the crux of it we were poor defensively.

“Do your jobs, defending from two corners, and you come away with a minimum of one point.

“We still made some strange decisions but over the piece I don’t think we deserved to lose the game.”

McCall has arranged a behind-closed-doors game against Huddersfield tomorrow to have a look at some of the players currently on the fringes.

Jamie Devitt, Zeli Ismail, Dylan Connolly, Jordan Gibson are all likely to feature. But Paudie O’Connor will miss out after tweaking his groin when he came off the bench in the second half.

McCall said: “When you’re losing away from home like we have, again after being up, mentally it must affect them confidence-wise.

“It’s about getting back on the training ground this week, going through things again and working on what we can do better.

“The lads who’ve got a game also have the opportunity to stamp a case for playing next week.”

McCall is also hoping that Callum Cooke and Kelvin Mellor could be back in contention in time to face Plymouth.