Bury came out 7-0 winners as they eased past Litherland REMYCA, Manager Dave McNabb spoke to the club to give us his thoughts on the game.
Dave McNabb: “I thought we were excellent in the first half, a couple of little sloppy moments defensively, the space in between the back line wasn’t quite right, we gave them a couple of chances, but going forward I thought we were frightening in the first half, I thought we were exceptional, we came in 5-0 and deserved. The second half started really well and then we got into a bit of a stop-start game for half an hour, 40 minutes or so, and look, massive, massive respect to REMYCA because it’s always tough when you concede the goals, but they didn’t stop, they didn’t give up, they were working right to the end, obviously he had to finish the game with 10 men as well, so I don’t want to be critical in any way, shape or form, we’ve won the game 7-0, I think we could have maybe been a bit more clinical in the second half, but again, you’re 6-0 up at the time, and it’s like, how much do you want the players to exert themselves, knowing that we’ve got seven massive games left, so all in all, really pleased and we’re prepared now to go ready for next week.”
He then spoke about the changes to todays starting 11 with Aaron Chalmers replacing Louis Jeanne on his return to the squad, he said “Yes, a bit of both, I think obviously, we’ve won every game since Louis came to the club, so the impact he’s had in such a short space of time has been really good. I thought it was important to try and get Aaron back on the side again, just a few minutes after he’d been away for a couple of weeks, obviously he had 20 minutes last week, we need to make sure the squad’s fresh, and that people are robust. I thought we needed Aaron’s aggression today on the pitch, he’s a leader and the way he attacks the ball is exceptional, so we thought we needed that today, but we’ve got the beauty of having a really strong squad, and obviously we’ve got lots of options, and I think the team that went out there today did really well.”
Dave then spoke about the fact he has used 18 players in his last 6 games with him saying “It is, and I think obviously people will have comments around the number of players used, and I’ve said it before, you don’t get the recruitments 100% right, there are some mistakes that you make, but I think in the squad that we’ve got at the moment, the 18-19 players we’ve got at the club at the moment, who are playing regularly here and playing, I think 12 of them have played over 75% of the games we’ve played this season, so 15 competitive games now under our belt, 12 of them have played at least 75% to 80% of those games, if you add that to your Josh’s [Gregory] and Brad Carroll’s, who’ve been long-term injuries but been here since the start of pre-season, 14 players in and around the squad all season, it’s a big percentage in terms of players played, so you’ve always got to take a bit of stick now and again when players come in and go, but it’s the level we’re at, but like you said, 18 players used over the last six or seven games, I think it shows how strong we are and how robust the current group is.”
He then spoke about Nicky Adams return to the side with him saying “Yeah, exactly, I think he’s trained well this week, we probably held him back last week, we probably could have pushed him for the Thursday training and then into the squad for the Saturday, but we held him back another week, he did really well this week in training. The plan was today, get him on for 20 minutes, just sit and bottle the ball about, he must have played about 25 long passes in the first five minutes, so he’s more than tested his hamstring now and come through, so that’s good.”
Dave then spoke about the 7 different goal scorers in todays result, he said “Yeah, it’s strange isn’t it, obviously the amount of goals we scored this season is frightening, but to score seven in a game and have seven different scorers, it doesn’t happen too often, but again, it shows that it’s not just all about your strikers, it’s not all about your DJs [Pedro], it’s not all about your Rubens [Jerome] or your Lewis [Bryne], we can share the goals about and some really good goals today, so build on that and we’ll go again next week.”
He then praised the fans for their atmosphere from today’s game “Yeah, we know how important they are in every game, obviously as the running comes in, they’re even more important, because REMYCA are a young side, they’ve got some young lads there, some really good players, and they’ve come here and they’ll never experience that, and the fans today were even better than usual. I mean, the noise out of them before we even kicked off, we were finishing the warm-up and they were already singing the songs, going through the normal repertoire, so the massive ask for me is just keep doing that, keep bringing the noise in and we’ll come and give 100 per cent for you.”
To finish the interview he then looked ahead to next weeks fixture against Barnoldswick “I think it’ll be a tough game, I think we were very clinical against them last time, they didn’t create a lot against us but we found it hard to break them down, the couple of chances we scored from, we only created maybe a handful more, so we’re very clinical on the day, we’ll have to be the same again next week.”