City are the bookies' favourites to be relegated next season.

The Bantams are quoted at only 5-4 with some national firms to drop from Division One, even shorter odds than Stoke, Walsall and newly-promoted Crewe.

But chairman Gordon Gibb is happy to be written off as the fall guys - as the club were last season while in administration.

Gibb, pictured, said: "I don't know how they can formulate the form guide for these type of things. But it is excellent motivational material for everyone at the club. We will now be working even harder next season to make sure a huge slice of humble pie is shoved down the throats of the so-called experts.

"It was the same last season when we were written off before a ball had even been kicked.

"We aren't a particularly fashionable club and perhaps that's why the bookmakers have this downer on us.

"We're not from a trendy part of London, just seen as little Bradford City. Maybe that also says on the profile side of things that we are missing a trick with regards to our brand image.

"That will be something we will work on, but on the pitch I know the players and manager will be desperate to prove the critics wrong."

Gibb believes City can be challenging in the top half of the table and has thrown down the gauntlet to Nicky Law in the final year of his contract.

Gibb added: "It is just not possible to predict results in this game. If it was, then nobody would come to watch it.

"After all, how many people would have thought that Bradford City would win at Wolves last season? They ended up getting promoted through the play-offs and yet we beat them at Molineux and deservedly so.

"But if the bookies feel that way about us, let them get on with it."

While football bookies Bet365 remain convinced the Bantams will have another season of toil, a spokesman for local bookmaker John Wood described the odds as an "insult".

"They certainly won't be favourites with us to go down," said betting operations manager Nick Lomas. "The odds are an insult to Bradford City. In fact someone rang the other day to ask what odds we would quote for City to get 60 or more points next season and we quoted them as low as 3/1."

Relegation odds (Bet 365): 5-4 City; 11-8 Crewe, Walsall; 7-4 Stoke; 5-2 Rotherham; 7-2 Burnley, Gillingham; 5-1 Preston, Watford.