Peterborough United boss rates the team at the bottom of League One

Evans will prepare for City’s trip to the ABAX Stadium on Saturday (November 17) by warning his players to be wary of a team with gifted individual players who will improve sooner or later.

Later is Evans’ hope as he seeks the win that could take Posh back into the automatic promotion places in League One.

“I look at Bradford’s squad and I cannot for the life of me understand why they are where they are,” Evans stated.

“I’ve also watched DVDs of their last four matches and they could easily have won three of them.

“They are in the sort of rut that can be difficult to escape, but I believe they have the quality of player which will get them out of trouble.

“I know Jack Payne and Eoin Doyle both gave Posh trouble when playing for different clubs last season and both of them were on my list of potential targets in the summer.

“They weren’t at the top and when Jason Cummings and Matt Godden signed for us we cooled our interest.

“They are both very good players though and Bradford have others who could trouble us if we let them.

“Football is littered with teams who everyone thought were too good to go down, but did end up relegated - just look at Sunderland in the Championship last season - but Bradford won’t be one of those.

“We will treat them with every respect, but we will be determined to make sure their struggles continue for a bit longer.

“We’ve had a good couple of cup results, but we need to get back to our bread and butter and keep the pressure on Portsmouth and Sunderland.”

Posh will only return to the top two if they win and Sunderland suffer an unlikely home defeat at the hands of Wycombe.

Evans expects to revert to the majority of the starting line-up that won an FA Cup tie at Bromley last Saturday, although members of a much-changed side that beat Luton in the Checkatrade Trophy on Tuesday did make a strong claim to be included.

“There might be a couple of changes to the Bromley team,” Evans added. “But not many.”

Siriki Dembele might be preferred to George Cooper.