GRAHAM Alexander called City’s first-half display a “waste of time” after their 2-1 defeat at Guiseley.

Alex Pattison pulled one back for the Bantams at Nethermoor this afternoon – but the damage had been done before the break.

Alexander swapped line-ups at half-time again as he had done last week against Chorley.

And he was fuming with the display from the team in the opening 45 minutes.

“I thought the first half was a waste of time for us,” he said.

“The way the lads have been trained has been superb and I think we wasted 45 minutes of our week.

“We forgot about how to win a game of football, to be honest.

“We were too focused on keeping the ball, moving the ball from side to side. We never really went anywhere with it and played the majority of the game in our half.

“We didn’t really press with any intensity or discipline.

“I thought we perhaps didn’t respect the opposition enough as if they couldn’t control or move or pass the ball.

“We just wasted 45 minutes of our training programme.

“Second half there was more energy, more running and more passing forward and it was better.”

City fielded a different trialist at the back in each half and second-year scholar Oliver Thompson played right wing-back after the break.

But there was plenty of experience in the first-half line-up.

Alexander added: “I was a player for a long time and sometimes you can get trapped in some mind space in a pre-season game.

“Then the opposition will get a goal, like they did, and it becomes a much harder game. But you’ve made it hard yourself.

“I felt we were doing that. We got into chances to shoot and tried for an extra pass, it was almost like we were trying to play a FIFA game of football.

“I said to the players that’s an early indication that we’ve got a lot of work to do in the next four weeks. We’re nowhere near the finished article.

“If we can take anything from the first half, it’s that we have to double down on the work we have to do.”