David Wetherall is haunted by the bitter memory of City's last game at Chesterfield.

A crushing 3-0 defeat in April snuffed out the last faint hope of beating the drop to the basement division - and stirred a furious reaction from the army of away fans as their team rolled over against a side who were also relegated on the same afternoon.

Filling the role of caretaker-boss at the time, Wetherall felt the pain just as deep after such a weak-willed display.

But though City's return to Saltergate on Saturday will be a sore reminder of a black day, the skipper insists revenge will not be on his mind.

"It would be nice to go back and get a result but it will have nothing to do with last season," he said.

"It's a new scenario we find ourselves in, we are dealing with a different set of circumstances and there are different reasons to try and win the game.

"We haven't got a score to settle with Chesterfield. We've got enough to worry about dealing with their present team than thinking about who was playing for them eight months ago - we've just got to concentrate on the here and now."

With Mark Bower unlikely to be ready and Eddie Johnson still out, Wetherall is one of only four survivors from the last meeting who will be heading back to the scene of the crime.

And while he is adamant there are no demons to be confronted, he is clearly still hurt by the memory.

"It was an incredibly difficult and deeply upsetting afternoon and looking back now, my views haven't really changed from when I was speaking right after that game.

"I just think losing to Leyton Orient the week before was too much mentally for the group of players. That had been billed as a make-or-break game and we ended up losing when we should have won 3-0 or 4-0.

"We'd had a few knocks in the previous few matches and that was just one knock too far. And after we conceded the first goal at Chesterfield, we just didn't play.

"It's a horrible game to look back on and I'm sure going into that dressing room tomorrow will bring a couple of memories back but you've got to put them out of you mind because there is a job to do.

"Once the game starts I won't have any thoughts about what happened last season."

City were disappointed to leave bottom club Mansfield with only a point on Wednesday. But despite their poor recent record at Saltergate, City should fancy their chances more than if Chesterfield were coming to Valley Parade.

The Spireites have won six times on their travels this season - but only twice in front of their own supporters.

Their last Saltergate victory was way back on September 7 against Bury and the 2-0 loss to Rotherham in midweek was their sixth home game since without success.

But Wetherall warned: "You never know how they'll react after that defeat. Chesterfield could be a wounded animal - and they say animals are at their most dangerous when they have been hurt.

"We can't control what kind of Chesterfield team come out against us. What we can control is what kind of Bradford team turns up against them.

"We've got to try and improve on some of the things that weren't quite right at Mansfield, where we didn't play as well as we can.

"We'd like to go to places like Mansfield and take three points and we've got to start doing that. But I'm not sure we did enough.

"I felt we were in control in the second half and not in any trouble at all. It was just a real frustration that we couldn't quite find the finish off set-pieces and the ball wouldn't drop for us."

Chesterfield will be banking on the return of leading scorer Jack Lester from an ankle injury.

Lester has been in prolific form since his summer switch from Nottingham Forest, with 15 goals under his belt, including six in his last four appearances - which earned him the League Two player of the month award for November.

He also netted for Forest in his last clash with City in February.

Lee Richardson may also recall Phil Picken and Aaron Downes, who were both on the bench against Rotherham as he kept faith with the line-up that had pulled off a superb win at leaders MK Dons the previous week.

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