Bantams number two Steve Parkin spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One match against Carlisle at the Coral Windows Stadium, Parkin talking about the importance of City's home form:
“Our home form will be really important through the season. We had a really good performance last week at Bristol City which we were delighted with, we would like to have conceded less sloppy goals I think. But, in general I thought we played very well against one of the favourites. Now it up to us after Tuesday night and the defeat at Huddersfield to show the home fans what we are made of. I think the support will be amazing, it was great down at Bristol, it was amazing at Huddersfield, so it is now up to us.
“All the home fans I am sure will get behind us and make the place a fortress and really get stuck into Carlisle right from the off. If you look back to the end of last season the home form and the home support that we had was just incredible. Now we feel as though Valley Parade is a place that our players want to play. I don’t think we feel any particular pressure playing in front of our own fans because we put on performances full of energy and endeavour.
“I think that is all they want to see and all they pay their money to see. If they can crank it up at the weekend it would be great, I am sure they will. It is nice to get back in front of the home fans in the league after being promoted last year, it is nice to play in front of the people who drove us on to success. The one thing about our team is that I firmly believe that they go right to the very end, so whoever plays us has to go 94 minutes to beat us.
“It will be a tough game, I think that people should not take their eye off the ball and think that Carlisle had a bad defeat last week and they had a player sent off very early. But, they had a terrific result in midweek so it will be a very tough game. I think that all games are difficult at the start of the season, people are finding their feet fitness-wise, people are getting used to new players and teams are not as settled as they were at the end of last season."
“So, it will be a tough game, there is no doubt about it. But, I also feel it is a game that if we are focused then we can make it tough for Carlisle. It is important that we are as determined as we were at the weekend and show the same kind of spirit. I think the spirit that we showed to come back twice from behind was terrific. There is a great feeling amongst the lads, there is a nice togetherness feel about them when they are training and in about the building. We have got to transfer that onto the pitch this weekend in front of our home fans.
“There are a lot of positives we can take into the game and we can take a lot out of the Tuesday night game even though we lost the game. We believe in our squad, we believe we have got a good squad, we believe we have got a good bench and we have got a lot of confidence in our players, and they have got to make sure that they take that into the game at the weekend.
“I don’t think playing Carlisle will register with Nahki Wells at all to be perfectly truthful. I think he is a focused young man at the moment, he has got off the mark in both games. He is really happy at the football club and he is playing well and he is forging a good partnership with James Hanson.
“I think the important thing for Nahki is that he listens to the manager [Phil Parkinson], because ever since the manager has taken the reins with him he has developed into a better player game in and game out and week in and week out. So, it is important that he just listens to the people who know better than him and gets on with the job that he is doing and keeps scoring the goals.”