Bury ran out 3-2 winners on Tuesday night over FC Isle of Man to extend their lead at the top of the NWCFL, Manager Dave McNabb spoke to the club to give us his thoughts on the game.
Dave McNabb: “Yes, obviously today felt a little bit better, getting the three points with the last minute as opposed to the point, but yes, late drama and I think today you saw what we’ve probably been seeing over the last couple of weeks, and the fans and yourselves might have seen it as well, but there’s just been a bit of a shift change mentality in the group, they’re not prepared to accept defeat, not prepared to accept failure, running through brick walls for each other, and sometimes when we’ve drawn games and lost games this season, we’ve been unbelievable with the ball and been brilliant in performances, sometimes when you’re a hard slog and a run like this, sometimes you just need to get through games and win, so it’s good that we’re showing we’ve got that resilience and that mentality as well now.”
He then spoke about the two changes to todays starting 11 with Tyler James and Nicky Adams not starting, he said: “Yes, obviously one was in force with Nicky, really unfortunate that he’s shut up all the time, he’s probably looking for a couple of weeks I think, he was brilliant again on Saturday, really unfortunate with the injury, but again that’s why we’ve got a squad, and then the other one was just a bit of a tactical tweak, I think Tyler’s been brilliant since he’s come in, his work rate is absolutely phenomenal, there’s still more to come with him on the ball, but yeah it was just more of a tactical tweak than the other one.”
Dave then spoke about Aidan Walker after his Gigg Lane debut, he said: “Thought he was really good defensively, he got on, put a couple of good balls in the box as well, so he wouldn’t be nervous tonight, there’s no doubt about that, but a really good start and hopefully he can build on that going forward.”
He then spoke about todays special achievement as the Shakers crossed 100 goals in the league this season, with him saying “No, 101 goals so far, probably conceded about 90 as well, but no look I think it’s a testament for how hard the lads are working, to be entertaining when you’ve got a fan base, they’re paying hard-earned money so they’ve got to be entertained, you’ve got to get them off to season, we’ve certainly done that, maybe a few times too many, but obviously we’ve still got a lot to work on, we’ve got a lot to address defensively, but again our attacking players have got us out of the mess.”
Dave then provided an update on Bobby Carroll who came off injured in the first half, he said: “Looks like he’s just a bit of a tweak in his knee, possibly a bit of a tweak in his MTL, so need to let it settle down over the next couple of days and probably get a proper assessment until Thursday or Saturday.”
Dave then gave us his thoughts on the importance of scoring set pieces following Bury scoring 2 tonight, he said: “Think the more different ways you can score goals the better, obviously we all want to see a goal where someone’s thunderbolted into the top bin from 30 yards or a 25 pass move and we’ve seen both of them this season alright, but I think set-pieces are a really important part of the game and again they can get you out of trouble when you’re not playing so well, so to score another two tonight is pleasing.”
To finish the interview Dave then looked ahead to this weekend’s clash away against Prestwich Heys
Dave McNabb: “They’ve had another fantastic win tonight haven’t they, so I think despite the league position they’re very much the informed side in the league, so it’s going to be tough, but we’re on a good run as well and again we’ll get confidence from not just the win tonight but the way we’ve won it as well, so we’re proving that we can win in different ways now, which will probably be a little bit of a criticism at the start of the season, so yeah I look forward to it, we’ll train Thursday and recover and then we’ll go again Saturday.”
