Football Shorts

After his side booked their place in the northern area semi-finals with a 2-0 win over Port Vale, Bradford manager Phil Parkinson said: “I thought the lads were excellent tonight.

“Vale are a good side and they put out a strong team tonight but I thought the lads worked really hard and deserved their victory.

“As I’ve said before, the lads want to win every game they can and I think that desire showed through tonight (Tuesday).

“I think to win tonight after making changes again shows the tremendous spirit and character within our squad at the moment.

City face Torquay United on Saturday before next Tuesday’s League Cup quarter-final clash with Arsenal.

Neil Warnock has warned Leeds United’s squad to beware the consequences of cheap bookings and needless red cards with the last of his suspended players poised to return from a three-match ban.

The Leeds manager said the cost of recent suspensions to Jason Pearce and Michael Brown and the impending fight for selection facing Luke Varney should ward against poor discipline during the second half of the club’s season.

He said: “We’ve got to try and keep our discipline a little bit better.

“The two sendings off – whilst I don’t think they were malicious, we shouldn’t be giving referees decisions to make on silly things like that. Pearce was on the halfway line and Varney was on the halfway line. We ended up losing games where we could have got a result.”