MARK Hughes has vowed to get to the root of City’s Valley Parade heartache - and to sort it.

The Bantams wasted their chance to move into League Two automatic promotion spots for the first time with Saturday’s loss to Northampton.

They have now collected only three points from the five home games since their last win against Stevenage.

It is in complete contrast to City’s impressive away record where they have won six out of seven.

A frustrated Hughes said: “We will get to the bottom of it and make sure we are better than we are at the moment for whatever reason.

“We can talk until we are blue in the face, we need to do it on the pitch. That's the challenge that we have.”

The crowd of 18,666 was the second highest of the season and defender Matty Foulds admitted the team feel they are letting down the huge home backing.

“We put in performances away and then it’s just not clicking for us at home,” he said.

“I don’t know why, I can’t answer that question. But I’m sure it will turn for us.

“The way we want to play, the fans can be a bit on edge. Fair play they turn out in numbers every week and we haven’t performed for them.

“But we’re still up there. It only takes one or two results and we’re back in contention for the automatic places.

“We’re not a million miles away. They were better than us on the day but there’s nothing to beat ourselves up about and we’ll bounce back.”

Romoney Crichlow faces a spell on the sidelines with the calf problem that made him a late absentee at the weekend. Matty Platt returned from suspension but Hughes felt they needed the Huddersfield man’s composure at the back.

The City boss added: “We probably missed Rom's calmness in possession and that was a late loss to us, so that was a setback.

“He's pulled his calf unfortunately and he will be out for two or three weeks minimum.

“But that's not the reason we lost. We have enough on the pitch, as we showed in the first half hour, to cause them problems but goals change games.

“They are a good team and it's no surprise it was a test. We have just got to make it easier for ourselves.

“Clearly, you don't concede immediately after a setback, certainly not when you are playing well. I think it just shook our confidence a little bit and we stopped doing the things we know we are good at.

“The third was pretty ragged from our point of view and there were occasions when we were over-committing in one area and leaving ourselves susceptible to breaks going the other way.

“We will learn from that and have to do better in those situations where we play similar opponents with similar threats. We have to deal with them better than we did.”

City head to Salford tomorrow in the Papa Johns Trophy second round before their blank weekend.

Foulds said: “We've got to dust ourselves off and luckily we've got another game.

"The morale is good in the changing room. If we can put in a performance on Tuesday that will set us up for a week on Saturday when we play Leyton Orient.”