LIKE a juggler keeping more and more balls in the air, City are determined to ensure that no part of their season will come crashing down.

The short turnaround before the Reading replay has caused a furore but the FA Cup will be shoved to the back of their minds again tonight.

City dropped to tenth over the weekend in the congested fight for the League One play-offs but can jump back into the top six if they win their first visit to Coventry’s Ricoh Arena.

And they would still have a game in hand on several of their closest rivals.

City are fully aware of the significance of the Sky Blues clash and midfield battler Gary Liddle insists they are well equipped to dealing with such a full-on workload.

Liddle said: “It is a balance between the league and cups but I feel we are getting used to it.

“This is a new experience for me, as I have not been in a cup this late in the season.

But for the past month or two, we have been playing Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday so we are used to it.

“We have a free week coming up after the 21st - it is in the diary already. That will be our first breather in a long while.

“The thing is, though, if you are winning then you don’t want the games to stop.

“Apart from the two results previous to Crawley, things have been going all right in the league.

“We still find ourselves on the cusp of the play-off places with the added bonus of the cup; so far, so good.”

Liddle wasted no time in scanning the weekend results to see their impact on the Bantams. As soon as the quarter-final was done at Valley Parade, he was checking out what was going on elsewhere.

He added: “After Reading, I was straight on to following the league games. With how tight it is, we could have found ourselves in mid-table by 5pm on Saturday.

“We now have a couple of games in hand and we have to use them. The schedule is busy but the lads are doing all right and looking to do well in both competitions.”

For Liddle, who had previously never got beyond the FA Cup’s last 32, it is a welcome conundrum to be fitting all the games in.

Better a jam-packed schedule than one just ticking off the weeks towards the end of the season.

He said: “This is exactly what I wanted to happen when I came in this summer. Every professional wants to enjoy days like these and be able to chase success.

“It only shows you are doing well with the back-up of fixtures. We want to do better than the club did last year and push for those play-offs.”