RELAXED Phil Parkinson is prepared to play the long game for his top transfer targets – just as he did last year with leading scorer Billy Clarke.

The City chief has made contact with a couple of possible recruits but insists he is not going to be rushed into action.

Parkinson believes he has a solid base to work from and is confident of avoiding a repeat of last year, when the Bantams went into the season with reduced resources.

He said: "People look at the progress we've made. Hopefully we can attract some good players like we've done in the past.

"But we know doing that, we will face competition. We might have to be patient, as we've been in the past with Billy Clarke and people like that. With Billy, we waited and finally got the deal done.

"Good players are confident in the knowledge that they will attract interest and have other offers to consider, so they've no need to rush into anything."

City hurried through five signings on the eve of last season – Chris Routis, Filipe Morais, Ben Williams, Matt Urwin and Mo Shariff – to boost numbers in the dressing room.

While Routis signed for the full season, with a year's option, the others came in on deals that initially just covered the first few games.

They were all done in the last two days before the campaign opener against Coventry – a frantic scenario Parkinson does not envisage happening again.

He said: "It was pretty tight. There was concern about the budget early in the summer, which restricted us to a certain degree.

"We had to get players in on non-contracts or short term etc to see us through the first part of the season. Certainly we don't want to be in that situation again, even though we started well.

"We would like to have the strength in depth within the squad.

"We know it's a little bit up in the air in terms of where we are. But we'll continue to have discussions and I don't think we need to rush too much in terms of our signings.

"We're trying to get the age of the squad right and the balance in terms of positions. That's the challenge from now until the first game on August 8.

"But sometimes it works out that you can't do that until right before the start of the season."