Wetherall hopes for bounce effect

Bradford City’s player manager David Wetherall is keeping his fingers crossed that the club can’t go any lower.

A 3-0 capitulation at Chesterfield sent the Bantams down to the fourth tier of English football for the first time in a quarter of a century.

He told the Telegraph & Argus: ‘we’ll have to plan as best we can for next season and keep our fingers crossed and hope that this is the bottom and that we do bounce.’

But Wetherall warned that more tough times lay ahead.

‘We know we’re going to be seen as a big club down there but we also know that purse strings get tightened,’ he said.

‘We’ve got players still under contract but we haven’t got many and what money is available for others I don’t know.’

Wetherall apologised to the City fans who travelled to Saltergate hoping to witness part one of a great escape.

He said: ‘The support we received was outstanding again and they deserved better. They gave us great backing and I thought it was really going to lift us but it’s not worked out like that.

‘We didn’t perform as an attacking force, didn’t create enough, didn’t pass the ball enough and didn’t regain possession quickly enough.

‘I expected so much more and have to be very careful with what I say but we simply weren’t good enough and got exactly what we deserved, which was nothing.’