THE pandemic has taught us all to expect the unexpected.

Take nothing for granted in the world right now – every routine is suddenly subject to change.

Who would have thought, for example, that City would be the only club in League Two still to kick a ball in anger in 2021?

And that after playing five times in the first 15 days under interim bosses Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars.

It will be three and a half weeks out of action by the time City, hopefully, line up at Cambridge’s Abbey Stadium.

But then the Bantams have learned not to count their chickens until referee Sam Allison’s opening whistle.

The famine after the feast has come as an unwelcome interlude in a season not like any other anyway.

But Trueman believes the way everyone has learned to adapt to moving goalposts in the past tumultuous year has helped the players cope with the sudden hold-up in the schedule.

He said: “It’s one positive to come out of this that the players are able to deal with the situations that are thrown at them.

“If it was just a one-off a year or two ago then it could affect the changing room. But with it being quite common, it’s something that the players are just dealing with.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had it in a season where it’s gone from such a heavy Christmas period to no games in three weeks.

“But it’s today’s kind of world. We live in a Covid situation and you’ve just got to adapt and do the best you can in the circumstances.

“The players’ mindset adapting to the different scenarios is good. We’ve got a good group in the building.

“We’ve had to go on to the 4G (artificial pitch) at times because of the weather, which is not ideal, but they’ve just got on with it.

“They are good pros and the kind of characters we want. Whatever challenge thrown at them, whether it’s Covid, the pitch, delayed games or playing loads of them, they’ve shown they can adapt and perform.

“Hopefully, we can carry on where we left off in a tough game at Cambridge.”

Trueman and Sellars organised an 11 v 11 training match last Saturday after the Crawley cancellation. They had also staged a practice game the previous week to keep the intensity levels as switched on as possible.

“We’ve got to make sure that we are 100 per cent ready when we do play,” he added.

“You can’t get the same realism as a normal game but you get somewhere close. The training has been thoroughly worked out, so we’re still confident in our preparation.

“The players were desperate to play last Saturday.

“We’d had the disappointment of travelling over to Scunthorpe and that being cancelled.

“Then we’d had another good week’s training and again, almost last minute, the decision gets made.

“We know there’s going to be a backlog of games and a lot coming up so we’ve got to prepare the best we can do.”

City will have to step straight up at Cambridge, whose comeback win at Southend in midweek took them to the top of League Two.

But a Harry Pritchard cracker ensured Trueman and Sellars enjoyed a 1-0 victory over the U’s in their first game in the Valley Parade dug-out last month.

Trueman said: “I thought it was a good performance. We caused them a lot of problems and nullified their threats and it’s important we try and match that, if not better it.

“They will know about us but we showed in the Tranmere game that we can adapt if needed, either with personnel or in terms of the opposition.

“They also had a game the other night which plays into our favour in terms of seeing them.”