Bury drew 1-1 with Charnock Richard at Gigg Lane after a second half equaliser by Alex Cherera extending the Shakers unbeaten league run to 20.
Tim Lees when speaking to the club gave his reaction to the game saying: “I thought we started the game really poorly in the first half we weren’t at it and we started defensively really I think we dropped too deep with the frontline and the backline allowed them to gain momentum and it wasn’t us, we didn’t have control as we normally do and it was difficult for us in that spell and we got caught up in the emotion of the game a bit too much.”
Also saying “We’ve obviously got a very young group and I thought in the first half we just weren’t at it and in the second half that’s exactly what we are it’s exactly what as a group we represent loads of energy and it starts with the pressing, we were 10 yards higher and we started getting loads of regains and we started forcing mistakes and creating doubt in them and ultimately we created enough chances to win 2 or 3 games so yeah it’s disappointing first half but the second half we were excellent.”
Tim than explained what he believed went wrong in the first half.
Lees: “When your playing at home with the crowd you need to use that to your advantage when your Bury so get that energy high and get people off their seats and start creating doubt in the opposition don’t allow them to control and gain confidence and we did that too much our front line dropped 10 yards too deep and we allowed them to start stepping in and getting up the pitch and then we allowed them to start putting balls on top of us which are then on the edge of the box where they then started winning flick-ons and getting runners off us so we couldn’t get out and it came from our defensive set up as we were too negative and it was difficult for us to gain control in that so obviously we changed a few personnel at halftime so we changed a few things, where we were going to defend and it changed a lot and we’ve got to do better than that, we’ve got to start games better we’re playing really well at the minute but we’re not doing it consistently for 90 minutes so we’ve got to be and we’ve got to show how we want to impose ourselves on the opposition but for longer.”
Tim than gave us his thoughts on the second half substitutions and what was exactly said at half time saying “I mean it was the personnel, I think the two changes we made added a lot of energy but it was more the collective really and changing the mentality of the whole group and as I said we started collecting the ball a lot higher and creating doubt in them, there was no hesitation in our pressing in comparison to the first half where there was a lot of hesitation in the press and it created a lot of big gaps where they could play through and round us.”
Further adding “We said to the lads the way we want to play when were at our best we’ll be dominating the ball and in our opponents half we’re winning it to regain and then attack again and the centre half’s are being aggressive on the halfway line it’s not box defending where our defensive line is 10 yards outside our box and that’s not us it’s not what we represent and it’s not how we want to play so as I said it was a good second half and we’re proud of the boys but we’ve got to be able to do that for 90 minutes.”
He then gave us his thoughts on whether it was a point gained or two points dropped saying: “You’ve got to respect the opponent so they are one of the best teams in the league and they’re going to be up there, they always give you a challenge physically but I think the focus for us is so we don’t watch opponents and look out in terms of results for opposition and it’s all about us and how we can implement the way we want to play on every opponent we’ll give ourselves a really good chance and then on we can set ourselves a really good target. At the minute we’re on 2.4 points per game and we know that would win us the league, so we just have to stay on that but based on the second half performance its two points dropped.”
To finish the interview Tim gave us his thoughts on the upcoming game against Longridge.
“We’ve got some decisions to make in terms of selection and we’ll be looking for more consistency in our performance if we go out and look at it at the level, we’re at it’s about what we’re doing in both boxes and we’re not going to convert every chance but we’re creating a lot of chances every game but we can take that what we can’t take as management and as a group is the drop off in performance in the first half the way we start games is key and we’ve got to take the confidence away from the opposition so that’s something we’ll be focusing on for Saturday.”
