ELLIOT Watt joked that Andy Cook could soon be playing in the top flight if he performs like he did in City’s big win over Forest Green this afternoon.

Cook scored twice – and hit the bar with a wonder effort from 40 yards – in City’s 4-1 Valley Parade victory that lifted them to just three points away from the play-offs.

The on-loan Mansfield striker has now hit seven for the Bantams to push his claims for a permanent move when his contract is up at the end of the season.

Watt, who fired City’s opening goal, said: “If Cooky keeps performing like that, he might get a move to the Premier League!

“But it’s like anyone at this level. You need to be performing consistently.

“That’s what the top players do week in, week out and they are doing it on the big stage.

“His stats in terms of goals to starts are very good since he came to us.

“I’m sure there will be people knocking on his door come the summer – but we’ll want to keep him here by the way!”

City equalled their biggest winning margin of the season and they had not scored four in a league game since January 2019.

Joint boss Conor Sellars said: “It’s the first time we’ve scored so many goals so it’s really pleasing. It’s a nice feeling.

“Forest Green are a really good side who are up there for a reason and it was important that we performed.”

The Bantams are up to 10th and halved the gap to the final play-off spot after Newport lost their third game on the bounce.

But Sellars once again played down talk of the top seven.

“We’re aware of the table but we were also in a good position six or seven games ago when we were asked the same question,” he added.

“We’ve been in this situation before where we’ve dropped off. We don’t want to get our hopes up.

“We want to keep working hard to get as many points as we can until the end of the season.

It’s about performance and development and if we do those things right, we’ll put ourselves in a good position.”