Phil Parkinson believes his City marathon men are in great shape for Wembley – in both body and mind.

Saturday’s League Two play-off final against Northampton will be their 64th game of a monumental campaign. But the Bantams boss insists his squad are still as fresh as ever.

Parkinson gave them an extended weekend break to recharge the batteries and has been delighted with the response in training.

He said: “We aren’t going to get the players much fitter at this stage so it was important to give them those few days off to rest physically and mentally. They’ve come back looking really sharp.

“I feel this team have still got a lot of running and enthusiasm left in them. You see that every day at training, even this late in the season.

“Sometimes you still have to drag the players off the training pitch because they want to keep going that little bit extra. They’ve still got the energy and the enthusiasm.”

Potential match-winner Kyel Reid is being treated with kid gloves in the build-up. Having just come back from a groin injury in the second-leg success at Burton, City are taking every precaution.

Parkinson added: “Reidy is back in training but we’re still protecting him to a certain degree. We’re giving him the best chance of producing a really good performance if selected.”

Sales of Wembley tickets stop at midday as everything gears towards the pivotal afternoon in City’s promotion bid.

Parkinson said: “The play-offs have supplied great drama already. I know Sky were delighted with the spectacle our games with Burton provided for the neutral and Watford’s win over Leicester on Sunday was great to watch.

“It’s getting that balance right between understanding the importance of the game and remaining calm to play as best as you can.

“You can’t fault the play-offs because they keep the season alive for so many teams. It’s a great way to get promotion and we will endeavour to do that.

“We’ve had a good taste of what the play-offs are about against Burton. Now we’ve just got to concentrate on one more game and playing as we know we can. Do that and the result will take care of itself.”

The manager’s own future has been pushed to one side until after Wembley. Joint-chairman Julian Rhodes confirmed that the long-running talks will resume next week to finalise deals with Parkinson, assistant Steve Parkin and fitness coach Nick Allamby.

Rhodes said: “The good news is that Phil’s (two-year) contract is agreed and we're very relaxed about it. We had a good chat last week and there’s nothing in there that’s going to be a problem.

“There has been a lot of toing and froing but also look at the season we’ve had. There has been so much going on that sorting the manager’s contract out was the last thing on anybody’s mind, in particular Phil’s.

“He wanted to make sure everything was going right on the pitch because that’s his priority. He knows everything else will fall into place.”