CITY are ready for phase two of pre-season after getting Guiseley out the system.
Graham Alexander and his coaching staff had a meeting with the players on Monday to highlight the shortfalls of their weekend effort compared with how they finished last season.
And the Bantams boss was delighted with how the players dealt with that “reality check” in yesterday’s closed-doors friendly at another EFL side.
“It was much better than our last run-out,” said Alexander.
“We had two 60-minute games, in effect, so everyone got through a bit longer, which is brilliant from a physical aspect.
“The players approached it in a much better way than we did on Saturday.
“We showed them a little segment of the (Guiseley) game and gave them reference points of how we finished the season, like our pressing stats.
“Then we showed them the contrast of what we did Saturday.
“Regardless of who we play, we have to stick to what we do. We can’t set our level of performance against whichever opponent we play.
“It’s that word consistency again. We have to approach it the same, regardless of whether it’s home or away, whatever the opposition.
“Our levels have to be set by us and that certainly wasn’t the case on Saturday.
“It was a good opportunity for us to have a reality check. We’re not that good that we can play in second gear and think we can beat anybody.
“The players responded to that. They trained exceptionally well on Tuesday and followed it up with a proper performance.”
City have a day’s breather before they set off for Austria tomorrow for the Obertraun training camp.
Alexander added: “We can get down to sharpening up the movements and the training sessions and putting a little more detail into it.
“We’ve got through the first two-and-a-half week period where we just wanted to hit them hard physically to go on to the second stage.
“We’re really pleased with how the players approached it yesterday against a very good opponent on a hot day.
“We made yesterday count – which we didn’t do on Saturday.”
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