BRAD Halliday insists it is a case of "when, not if" City make it to Wembley.

The defender is brimming with confidence after his first goal in 29 months secured their play-off crack at Carlisle.

It is the first time since 2017 when they lost the League One final to Millwall that the Bantams have been involved in the end-of-season shoot-out.

And Halliday predicts they are heading for another date at the national stadium later this month.

"I think we have to be confident,” he said. “We've shown we can overcome hurdles and obstacles and these next two are hurdles to achieving what we want to.

"We've overcome a lot this season as a team. In the summer it was a lot of fresh bodies trying to gel together as quickly as possible.

“We've come to the end of the regular season and the season probably starts now for us.

"There are a few lads who have been to Wembley a couple of times and achieved promotion with different clubs. Hopefully we can do it here."

Halliday expects the Valley Parade faithful to have a significant role in the semi-final against Carlisle after a record modern-day league crowd of 22,576 saw the Leyton Orient draw.

"The fans got behind us all day and I take my hat off to each and every one of them.

"It was incredible, I think it was another record broken. The club's massive, we've said it throughout the season. We've got three big games where they'll play a massive part.

"Hopefully they can come and see us over the line to achieve what we've wanted to from the start of the season.

“The two legs will be two big crowds and when we go to Wembley it'll be even bigger.”

Halliday will make his 50th City appearance in the home leg against the Cumbrians on Sunday night. Mark Hughes praised the right back’s staying power after a serious knee injury had wiped out his previous season with Fleetwood.

The City boss said: “Brad’s had a fantastic season because we bought him on the back of being out for almost 12 months with his knee injury.

“He hadn’t played any real rehab games or ones of significance. He just went straight into pre-season, played in games and basically played almost every game.

“Credit to him to come back from a really bad injury that he had to make himself available at the right level, week in, week out.”

And Hughes has no issue with Halliday’s bold predictions.

“Why not? He’s just scored a goal after two years. Why wouldn’t he be positive?

“We’re in the mix to get out this league which was always the aim. So, let’s hope it can happen.”

There was only one goal in the two league meetings with Carlisle and Halliday is braced for another couple of tight encounters.

"They're a good team, we know that. We know their strengths and their weaknesses.

“The first leg's here, which'll be massive if the crowd can come and help us. We'll do our best to put ourselves in a good position going to Carlisle.

"It would have been a real shame after spending a lot of time in and around the play-offs with the occasional chasing third place to have not made the play-offs.

“It would have been a disaster really, but we've got the job done and now we've got three big games to achieve what we want.”