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Parkinson wary of Scunthorpe test

Image: Phil Parkinson: Predicting a tough outing

Phil Parkinson believes their biggest test of the season will come against Scunthorpe at Valley Parade on Saturday.

Scunthorpe won a marathon penalty shoot-out at Worcester on Wednesday night in their FA Cup second-round replay, but Parkinson insists the Iron's record-breaking 14-13 victory which followed extra-time will have no bearing on Saturdays' clash. "They've got three or four players who weren't available back again so I'm not going to get too carried away with that," said Parkinson "I know they're a team who spent quite a bit of money in the summer and had an indifferent start. "But Mark Robins has gone in there and turned their fortunes right round and from what I've seen of them they look a very well-organised, well-balanced team and I will be reiterating to the lads this is going to be one of our hardest games of the season." Bradford are unbeaten in six matches in all competitions and victory at Chesterfield last week lifted them to within a point of the play-off places. "I felt the Chesterfield game was a big one for us because I wanted us to set ourselves up for this Christmas period," Parkinson added. "We've got some really difficult games. We're up against Scunthorpe, one of the form teams in the league, and I want to get through the Christmas period to the Millwall game with the standard of our performances maintained. "You can never guarantee the result. A team on the day may play better than us and we'll hold our hand up, or something might not go our way, but it's important that we maintain the standards we've been setting throughout most of the season really, but certainly in the last six or seven games. "My only target is to get to that Millwall game with our performances levels staying high and that's the right thing to do. "We're purely focused on Saturday's game against Scunthorpe."

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