Bury ran out 3-2 winners over Lower Breck in the first home game of 2025, Manager Dave McNabb when speaking to the club gave us his thoughts on the game.
Dave McNabb: “Over the moon with the result. I thought we had the worst possible start to the game, conceding so early but first half I thought we were outstanding. I think they showed massive character, massive togetherness. To come back and 3-1 up, possibly could have been more. I think we’ve had another couple of chances where maybe we should have scored and put it to bed. But when you lead by two goals and the tendencies tend to start dropping and dropping, we’re trying to squeeze the lads up. But it’s so hard to explain that sort of pendulum in football when it goes against you. They conceded a sloppy goal again and then it’s really back to the wall time. But look, they put the bodies on the line. It was poor in terms of if you break it down in possession, it was really poor today. I think we’re so much better than what we’ve shown. But we’ve been ramming home all week about how much of a difficult game it’s going to be, how physical, how challenging it’s going to be from that side of it. We’ve raised questions about them around the character of the group and I think they’ve answered it in brilliant form today. The work rate and everything was outstanding.”
Dave then spoke about today’s change to the starting 11 with Reuben Jerome coming in for Lewis Bryne with him saying “Yes, so again, I thought for the majority of the game last weekend we were excellent, and it probably would have been the same 11. But Louis has been unwell all week, came to training Tuesday, but he had to drop out, really struggling, couldn’t train Thursday. So, he was desperate to play, and we did feel for him, but that’s why we’ve got a squad and Reuben, to be fair, I think the way he did his game when he came on last weekend, he was excellent. He’s trained unbelievably well the last few weeks; he’s chomping at the bit. And today’s showing, I think he was outstanding today. He’s run out of steam so it’s 60 minutes, but what a first half he’s put in there. Made up for Ruben, obviously gutted a little bit for Louis, but again, that’s why we’ve got a squad.”
He then spoke about the attacking link up play from Djavan Pedro and Reuben Jerome and how the team played as a whole, he said: “Absolutely. We’re always going to create chances. I mean, the number of chances we create on a game, it’s ridiculous. We probably should have been scoring more; I think we scored 95 or 96 league goals. When you add the cut ones in, it’s probably in and around 120. So I think the number of goals we’ve scored is frightening. I think it probably should be higher, if we’re being completely honest. We’ve got to do better at the other end. I think it’s individual mistakes and I don’t think it’s just about the mistake in the first phase or the phase that obviously results in a goal. I think when you look at the first goal today, we’ve got two chances to clear the ball, and we haven’t. We’ve dilly-dallied on it, we’ve lost possession, then we give away a free kick. So, look, its learning curve, and we’ll go away, we’ll dissect the game, we’ll make sure the lads are coached on it and it’s brought to their attention on Tuesday.”
To finish the interview, he then looked ahead to next weeks match against Stockport Town with him saying “I think it’s a tough place to go. I think obviously it’s an artificial pitch, which is good, it helps us. But they’re one of those sides where technically they’re outstanding. A lot of very young players, relatively risk-free for them. They go out, they play with loads of freedom, loads of attack and intent. They’re a team that can cause anyone problems going forward, so we need to be at our best. We’ve got a good week of training ahead and obviously we look forward to Saturday now.”
