Bradford City hit rock bottom on Saturday when they slipped to the foot of the Premiership for the first time with their 1-0 defeat by Southampton.

But manager Chris Hutchings is urging his men to restore their battered pride in tonight's home Worthington Cup tie against Darlington.

Valley Parade's lowest Premiership gate of 16,163, saw the Bantams fail to score for the fifth time in seven league games on Saturday..

But Hutchings said: "We have to bounce back quickly."

City go into tonight's match leading 1-0 from the first leg and Hutchings stressed: "We must make sure we start well and get the breaks we need.

"We are not dwelling on the Southampton match. That's gone now.

"We trained yesterday to prepare for the game and although the players were a little bit quiet at first they livened up as the session went on.

"Obviously we were disappointed to lose on Saturday, but I have looked at a video of the game and we probably had more chances than they did.

"Their goal was a scrappy affair and after that we had chances to equalise by having a go at them."

City's task will not be made any easier by the fact they have collected more injury problems.

Midfield player Lee Sharpe is City's latest injury victim. He had a stitch inserted on top of his foot after Saturday's game and is ruled out of tonight's match.

Defender David Wetherall is under treatment for a sore thigh and tight groin but he is expected to be fit as is midfield player Dan Petrescu who has back problems.

Reserve winger Gareth Grant, who came on as substitute for Sharpe against Southampton, might be given a place in the starting line-up, but Hutchings will not decide his team until nearer the kick-off.

Despite his injury problems, Hutchings welcomes the Darlington match, saying: "It would be nice to get a morale boosting win, but I am sure that Darlington will be feeling exactly the same."

Left back Wayne Jacobs, who made his first full Premiership appearance of the season on Saturday, summed up the positive mood in the City camp when he said: "We have got to look forward after the Southampton defeat.

"It is a question of rolling up our sleeves and getting on with the next game.

"That is something we have always done at this club and hopefully it will continue.

"These are early days. Obviously you don't want to be at the bottom of the league, but we knew it was going to be a hard start to the season and we hope we can go on to pick up points from here."