Pennington: Bradford City thrive on added spotlight at home.

MATT Pennington believes City has earned the weight of expectation that will be placed on them again at Valley Parade tonight.

The Bantams return to their BD8 fortress determined to improve on their poor performance against Wimbledon.

Saturday’s humiliating defeat, their sixth in seven away games, puts the burden back on to keep the ruthless record at home.

Pennington, on the other hand, does not mind putting that pressure on City as they prepare to face relegation-threatened Rotherham.

“I think that’s increasingly what’s happened to us at every game at home,” the defensive specialist stated. “People expect us to take the game to teams, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

“We’ve kind of earned it over the last few months of strong performances, and I’m delighted we have another game and the opportunity to rapidly correct things.

“We enjoy playing at home. This season’s fans have been wonderful, as they have been when I first joined this football club.

“The emotion of playing at home on a Tuesday night, with such amazing support, helps us.

“Having 20,000 there the other night was incredible, and it’s an excellent environment to play football. We simply need to discover a means to replicate that form away from home.

“But if we can earn the three points, we’ll have three victories out of four, which paints a totally different image. That’s what we want to do.

Skipper Max Power is back after serving a two-game suspension, and the starting lineup is expected to return to its accustomed form after Graham Alexander made five changes at Plough Lane.

Pennington agreed that the gap between their last two home performances and how Wimbledon harassed them is concerning. “It’s something we should definitely address.

Saturday was a disappointing day overall, especially after such a strong start to the week.”It wasn’t a good feeling to be thrashed like way and surrender such bad goals.

“That is not like us. We’re typically difficult to beat, and opponents have to work extremely hard to score against us.

“Compare that to our performance against Stockport, who are perhaps a superior team that we kept at bay.”It’s one we have to get over quickly and learn from our mistakes since we have another game right away.

“That’s what this league requires. Saturday, Tuesday games, and another game Tuesday, but fortunately for us, it’s an opportunity to recover and respond.

“We’ve done that well this season after defeats and hopefully we can do it again.” Rotherham are second from bottom, five points from safety, following three consecutive defeats.

They lost a half-time lead to lose at Doncaster on Saturday, putting more pressure on manager Matt Hamshaw.

“I’ll be here until I’m told otherwise trying to get us out of this mess,” he answered.”Everyone at the football club will be anxious about where we stand in the league.

But we need to stay positive and attack games.”

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