Nicky Law reflected on another City cup flop and admitted: "We let everybody down."

The Bantams crashed out of the Carling Cup first round last night at home to third division Darlington, who won 5-3 on penalties after two hours of stalemate failed to produce a goal.

It means Law is still without a cup win in four attempts as City boss after previous exits against Walsall, Wrexham and West Brom. He said: "We talked a good game but haven't gone out there and done it on the pitch.

"Darlington got a good beating at Hull on Saturday and this was their ideal opportunity to put it right. We had to set about them at a good tempo for the first half and didn't do that.

"We were lucky to be 0-0 at half-time thanks to Mark Paston and then, having said what we were going to do in the second half, nobody went out and did it.

"Mark made four or five great saves to keep a clean sheet and there was a spell in the second half when we had a lot of the ball. But we couldn't find any end product - it was the total opposite to what we were like against Norwich.

"We've let ourselves and the supporters down and it is very disappointing."

City were one of five Division One sides to be toppled by lower league opposition. Tom Kearney missed the first penalty of the shoot-out and Paston never got close to Darlington's five.

Law said: "Tom was very confident and up for the first one, we just decided the order when it happened. They were all confident of taking them, that's just the way it goes.

"Penalties are a lottery anyway and I would have said that even if we had won."

"Maybe it's a good kick up the backside for a tough game at Cardiff on Saturday. We've got to forget this game now, it's gone and we've got to think about the weekend."

Meanwhile, Bobby Davison has been appointed youth team coach. He has been doing the job in a caretaker role since April.