Match Preview: Bury (A) Shake It Up

Following Saturday’s frustrating goalless draw with Torquay United, playing against ten men for the final 21 minutes, it’s time to move on to tonights match with managerless Bury, another team at the wrong end of the table but another team that make me concerned we might not get the result we want.

A manager less team always poses a threat as players up their game either to help the caretaker get the job to try and impress a potential new boss who could be watching from the stands. I fear after recent results this month that we’ll fall right into that trap, which is why we need characters out there tonight, characters who will grab hold of the strings and shake it up.

We’ve had an excellent start and credit must go to the players for putting the work in, however this month’s stats don’t lie that we are slipping away, is it because of a lack of fire power or does it coincide with another incident, I think the former is a growing concern.

We have only won by more than one goal on two occasions this season and, despite the potential of Clucas, Rhead, Palmer and Andrew, we are crying out for a proven goal scorer if only to stop the annoying phrase “Matt Green would have scored that” – he’s gone, he’s not coming back – get over it!

We do have the capabilities to turn potential into proven, provided we play the right system. Ben Hutchinson has perhaps enjoyed his best season so far in terms of starts, having been involved in all but seven of our games, yet gets criticised 80% of the time because he’s playing out of position – stick him central just off the shoulder of a target man ala Rhead or Palmer and your onto a winner.

Our problems are in the system, just creases that can be ironed out by picking to a more productive system and sticking to it – fingers crossed we find that tonight and shake it up to the tune of three points.

LAST TIME WE MET

The Stags and the shakers have met on 67 occasions previously having last locked horns in the 07-08 season, meeting in quick succession in February & March respectively. At Field Mill in February it was a 1-1 whilst in the reverse fixture, the shakers ran out 2-0 winners.

Mansfield’s last victory at Bury came in February 2005 when they ran out 2-0 winners, one of only five wins over the shakers on their turf.

In total, Bury have 28 wins to our 18 and lead the goals tally 104-77.

TEAM NEWS

Paul Cox has no fresh injury worries ahead of this one, with Chris Clements still on the sidelines.