ANTONI Sarcevic doesn’t believe that Bradford City should be billed as “underdogs” in their semi-final clash with Wanderers.
The 34-year-old midfielder scored on the final day at Exeter City to ensure the Bantams grabbed fourth spot and with it a chance to get back-to-back promotions.
Though the bookmakers have made Bolton favourites to reach the Championship, Sarcevic has hit back at the suggestion that Bradford should feel in any way inferior.
“The table doesn't lie,” he told the Telegraph and Argus. “Cardiff and Lincoln deserve to go up and the four teams in the play-offs deserve to be there.
“I think if you said to Stevenage, you'd be the underdogs against Stockport, they'd probably disagree with you.
“I'm disagreeing with you saying that we're underdogs against Bolton, because we're not. We finished above them.
“But we're going to go into these play-offs now, it’s two big games and may the best team win.”
Both league games between Wanderers and Bradford have finished in a draw this season, although Steven Schumacher’s side did earn a comfortable 3-0 win in the Vertu Trophy with both clubs making several changes to their established line-ups at the time.
Sarcevic missed the 1-1 draw at Valley Parade with an ankle injury but insists he is back in top shape to face his old club on Saturday in the first leg.
“It's fine. There’s no damage and I’m ready to go again,” he said.
“The gaffer knows me better than anyone. I'll always try and get out on the pitch but he has always said from the start of the season that he wants me to be as consistent and ready as possible.
“So, he's done the best to look after me, to get me in the best shape and ready for Saturday and the play-offs.
“It’s been tough, especially missing the last two home games which were both massive.
“Bolton was a hard one to miss especially but I’m ready for these play-offs to play them now.
“It’s going to be two good games, two good teams going at it, and I'm looking forward to it.
“If you look over the course of the season, all the games between the four teams in the play-offs have been close. I reckon it's going to be the same again in the next two weeks.”
Wanderers have received a 21 per cent lower allocation for the second leg at Bradford than they did for the league game in April, with 2,179 tickets available to supporters next Thursday.
Equally, they have significantly reduced the number of tickets available to away supporters for the first leg, their allocation of 2,051 down some 56 per cent on the league encounter in November.
Sarcevic has called on the Bradford fans to come in force over the two legs as they seek to make a successful season even better.
“They’ve been unbelievable all season and all I ask now is to just be with us for the next two games and potentially three,” he said.
“We'll do everything we can on the pitch to make it a good one.
“If we’d finished seventh, we'd be really disappointed. But if you said that at the start of the season, you'd finish seventh, you'd be happy.
“I think that's just the season we've had and the position we've put ourselves in.
“With the expectation that we've put on ourselves, we're ready for the play-offs. We're confident, we're excited.
“We’ll go into these two Bolton games doing what we’ve done all season and hopefully it’s enough to get us to Wembley.”
Bantams boss Graham Alexander is happy to be tagged as an underdog for the play-offs but pointed to two very evenly matched games in the league as evidence that his side have a good chance of making the final.
“I think it could have gone either way,” he said. “They could have beaten us and we could have beaten them.
“That was the tale of the game at Bolton as well. But whoever you play in the play-offs, you've got to respect.
“You don't get to this stage after 46 games unless you've got a good team and you've won a lot of games. That’s how we see it.”
Securing a play-off spot with a hard-fought win away at Exeter – who were still fighting to escape relegation – Alexander commended the character his side has shown this season.
“We didn't expect an easy game against Exeter and we didn't get one. You have to make every game what it is and we were really competitive,” he said.
“That's what I asked for, professional, focused and composed. You’re not going to get a 3-0 or 4-0 win against a team that’s fighting for their lives.
“I’m absolutely delighted they saw it through and won the three points because I know what those games and the play-offs mean mentally.
“To show that composure sets a good standard going into the next two games.”
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