Bury returned to winning ways after a dominant 4-0 win over Colne, Assistant Manager Tim Lees spoke to the club and gave his thoughts on the game.
Tim Lees: “It was a real disappointment, the way we played, particularly defensively. I think when we look back, at the number of chances we created, I think we had 21 in the game, so there wasn’t as much going forward really. But if you need to score three or four goals to win games, which out of the last few away games we did, it was an area that we needed to address, really. So, yes, I thought we were excellent today, controlled it right from about ten minutes in, really, once the game settled. I thought we really controlled the game, and dominated it. We were good for the four goals, thought we could have had a few more as well. Dominated in their half, aggressive in terms of our pressing, patient with the ball, so good to see us back to our normal ways.”
Tim than spoke on the 4 changes to today’s starting 11, he said “Yes, I think after the other night, it’s an area at the back that we needed. Not so much after the other night, really. I think Maka touched on it in his interview. We were too soft in terms of defending long balls and defending direct play. We know that’s what we’re going to be up against in this league quite a lot, particularly away from home. Especially if we’re going to press the way we press. We’ve got to be good at winning second balls and winning them first contact when we’re in their half and being aggressive in defending the half. First, Aaron came in, and thought he was excellent, excellent. Really calm on the ball, built the game well, slowed it down, and speeded it up at the right times. Then, from a defensive point of view, I think he won most of his headers all game. Really aggressive in the dominant, got us up the pitch, and made a massive difference from that point of view. Then, it was his organisation as well. If you look away from the ball, his leadership. Just the communication all the time to make sure the back line is where they should be and people around him are set up to defend properly. Then, Nicky. Obviously, Nicky’s quality and his experience and his career speak for themselves. I know all the fans are over the moon to have him back, but you could see straight away with him. His calmness on the ball, his ability to always be a free player with his movement, and his angles. The first goal came from it. Just calmness to play through the lines and pick the right passes and make the right decisions. His ability to particularly dictate and control the tempo is going to be massive for us. Obviously, a couple of defeats over the last few games.”
Further adding “Obviously, that first defeat coming off the back of an 8-0 win against Longridge. Very similar sort of game to what we saw today. How do you keep the consistency in the results to make sure you don’t have another couple of defeats in maybe two- or three weeks? I think the way we play; the idea is that we play the same way every game. We’re aggressive about the ball. We make teams go long a lot. I think we’re averaging over 70% of the ball and most of it is in the opposition’s half. That doesn’t change. We’re averaging the same number of chances every game, which is over 20 most games. It’s not particularly that. It’s the moments, the half a dozen times when you’ve got to defend those direct long balls. At the half, it’s when we’re in shape. We’ve been very vulnerable recently on crosses and direct long balls. I think the addition of Aaron makes a massive difference. It gives everyone confidence as well. We’ve just got to be more organised. We work on it a lot in training, but it’s an area that we must improve if we’re going to win the league. Bobby Carroll was part of the warm-up this afternoon, which is a positive thing for his recovery.”
Tim than gave us an update on Brad Carroll’s injury with him saying “Brilliant to have him back on the field. He’s back doing some fitness work. He’s just started today doing a bit of technical work as well. We think it’ll probably be another three or four weeks before we can get him involved and in contact and close to being ready for games. Again, the fans only saw him for a short period at the start of the season, but he was excellent for us. Again, that leadership and that physicality in the middle, as well as his ability on the ball and his experience. He’s been around the non-league a long time. It’s great to have him back and we don’t want to rush it too much. We’re hoping it can be three or four weeks.”
He then also gave us an update on Josh Greggory injury
Tim Lees: “Yes. his shoulder, he dislocated it in the home game. He’s been given a bit of good news: he can rehab it without needing an op, which is fantastic for him. I think, again, if you look at the recruitment from pre-season, if you look at the type of player in the middle there from Brad, who’s an aggressor, from Josh, who’s an aggressor, and then to be without Bobby as well, they’re three top players in center midfield. So, yes, the quicker we can get them back, the better. But it’s an area that we’ve got some real depth in now, especially with Nicky coming in.”
Tim then finished the interview by looking ahead to the midweek game against Irlam, he said “They’re a very, very good side, Irlam. It’s a difficult place to go. Pitch is difficult. They’ve got really effective players in the final third. One of which, Dirk, was what we had last year, obviously. But they’ve got two or three other lads that are very, very efficient. So, yes, the unfortunate thing is we haven’t got a session in between. But I think there are certain things that, as a group, we wanted to improve on in the last few games that we did well today that we’ll be certainly taking into the game on Tuesday.”