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The fortunes of Bury FC have turned around a great deal in the last couple of weeks. They were right in the bottom quarter of the League Two table before taking on Northampton the previous weekend and now they are at no. 7 with an outside chance of making it to the playoffs. This has been nothing less than a magical turnaround.

The no. of games that Bury still has to play in the ongoing season is 5. If they manage to win all those and secure 15 points, they might end up in the play offs and the manager David Flitcroft is not taking it as an impossible task. He believes that the kind of rhythm his boys have shown in the recent past, they are capable of doing that.

Chatting with the reporters after his team’s win against Exeter City yesterday, the Shakers’ boss said, “The performance of the boys for most parts of the first half was just amazing. They might have lost a bit of intensity in the last 5 minutes, but, that’s alright. It’s not possible to maintain the same kind of intensity for the entire half.”

“We have a handful of matches left and it would be really nice to win one and all. If you want to be a champion, you’ve got to think positive always.”

In their next match, Bury is going to take on Scunthorpe United which is placed second in the table. If they win that match, it would boost their self belief even more. Flitcroft also acknowledged the importance of that match.

He said, “We are up against Scunthorpe boys now who are having a great run. They would give us no room whatsoever. If we manage to pull that off, we will be in a great state of mind going ahead.”

Bury managed to end the run of two matches without a win after claiming a 2-0 win over Wimbledon. The victory, though, was made possible largely because of the substitutes made by the manager David Flitcroft. He was delighted with the impact made by the players who started on the bench. After the match, he said that the club has enough quality in the ranks to be able to avoid relegation, which seems to have become the main priority this campaign. Following this 1-0 win, the team will be heading into next weekend’s match against Mansfield Town with a lot of confidence.

Bury came into the Wimbledon match on the back of two consecutive draws, but the latest one against Accrington was far more disappointing. The team had scored just one goal in the past two outings. This began to tell in the encounter against Wimbledon, as they did not look like finishing the opponent even with numerous chances. It was not until the 90^th minute that the deadlock was broken by a goal from Danny Mayor. The winger scored at a very crucial time to help the club win three points and above seven clear off the relegation zone.

Since suffering the 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Chesterfield, Bury have now gone five matches without defeat, which looks promising for Flitcroft.

“I keep saying to them that the way I operate is to use 14 players to win a match. Jean-Louis came on and stretched them with his pace. I think Clive won every ball and Chris Sedgwick sat and dominated the centre of the pitch. We had three or four chances late on but you work for that. Before that we just cancelled each other out,” said Flitcroft to www.iloveliverpool.org.

Bury will next take on Cheltenham Town in the league.

Daniel Nardiello was signed to Bury on a loan deal but his string of performances has impressed the manager David Flitcroft who wants to sign him on a permanent basis during this January transfer window.

Nardiello scored 4 goals in 7 appearances during his 2^nd loan deal at Bury as he arrived from Rotherham around 1 month ago. He rescued 1 point for Bury when they played against Scunthorpe United on Boxin Day, the 31 years old found the back of the net during the last few seconds of the match which turned the final scoreboard into a 2-2 draw.

“With so many loan signings at the club, we’d like to make the deal with Danny permanent to take the weight off the loan situation,”

“Daniel Nardiello is a David Flitcroft-type player and certainly the kind of player I am trying to bring to the club. If you can play through Daniel Nardiello and get him slid into the box with passes like that then there are a lot of goals in him’’.

“That’s the plan. I want to work with Danny, he knows that.” David Flitcroft stated after their match against Scunthorpe concluded.

Pablo Mills was released by Rotherham United and Bury managed to sign the centre-back on a free transfer. Mills is the 3^rd defender that David Flitcroft has signed since the transfer window opened in January. The other defenders that joined Bury in these last few weeks were James Burke and Frederic Veseli.

The 19 years old James Burke was also released from his fellow club, the Championship side Huddesfield as he failed to make a single appearance for the squad but he was immediately signed by Bury on an 18 month long contract and now he wants to make his presence felt at his new club.

“It was a great step. I’m just glad to be playing, compared to being at Huddersfield and just playing in the Under-21 games. I was looking round for another club, the gaffer asked me to come down and I’ve taken a real liking to the place. Burke said.

The caretaker manager of Bury FC, Ronnie Jepson, has said that his team has been paying the price of individual mistakes.

Bury hasn’t won a single home game in the last 3 months. They had a chance to do that in their previous match against AFC Wimbledon as they were ahead by 1-0 in that game with just a few minutes to go. But, a mistake by the defender Nathan Cameron allowed Wimbledon to equalize the scores. That leveller left Jepson horribly frustrated.

According to Jepson, that game against Wimbledon was well and truly in the bag and it’s only because of the mistake committed by an individual, his team couldn’t win that game.

Now, the Shakers’ next opponent will be Hartlepool United which is an in form side at the moment. They are currently 10 positions higher than Bury in the League Two points table.

Talking to the reporters yesterday, Jepson said, “I reckon if we play as well as we can, we would easily get better of the sides like Wimbledon. No offence to them. They have played well recently, but, we have had sufficient quality to defeat them.”

“It’s just that we need to cut down the no. of individual errors. If we manage to do that, we will win games”

“We were desperate for a win against Wimbledon. We need to grab 3 points on more occasions than not. One point is not going to do it for us.”

Jepson had been appointed as the caretaker manager of Bury after the sacking of Kevin Blackwell one and half months back. He has guided Bury to just one win under his guidance so far. That one victory had come against Wycombe Wanderers at Adams Park on 26^th of October.

Bury have been extremely poor away from home and this is one of the reasons for the club slipping close to the relegation zone in recent weeks. The run of three consecutive away matches has ended in a defeat, which has led to manager Kevin Blackwell saying that he is very much looking forward to the first home match after several weeks. The last away win Bury came back in February of this year, which says a lot about the form of the club away from Gigg Lane. They will be taking on Southend United at home this weekend and it is a game that manager Blackwell is targeting three points from.

Southend United are currently in the mid-table, and they will definitely post a stronger test for the club despite the home form for Bury. Blackwell has said that one of the main reasons for the poor form of the club has been the way the fixtures have panned out in recent weeks. Five out of the last six matches for the club have ended in defeat and they were away from home. Blackwell has said that it is very important that the players do not stop working hard after the 2-1 defeat at the hands of Fleetwood last weekend.

“It’s nice to come home. Five out of the last six games have been away so it’s been a long time on the road. I don’t understand the league fixtures sometimes, the way they are. It can’t be right that you have got two and three games away from home all in one go at the beginning of the season. That obviously affects you because it is hard enough to win games without having been on the road all the time, where decisions that can go against you could go for you at home,” said Blackwell.

Bury managed to put in a decent performance in the defeat against Sheffield United at home on Saturday. Shaun Harrad had given his team an equaliser going into the first half, but Sheffield United made a couple of changes in the second half that proved to be the difference between the two teams. The League One team ultimately managed a 3-1 victory, but manager Kevin Blackwell has said that he can take a lot of positives out of this match. Blackwell believes that with the addition of a few players in the transfer window, his team will be able to match the best in the League Two    .

Bury will be one of the favourites to secure promotion in the coming season, but Blackwell reckons that the club can do extremely well with the addition of four marquee names before the close of the transfer window. He has said that there are different qualities of players. He currently has the lowest amongst a grade of three, and he says that he could certainly do well with the players belonging to the top grade. Former Arsenal youth team keeper Charles Cook has become the 11th signing of the season for the club. Bury will be looking into the loan market in order to strengthen his squad.

“There are category A, B and C players in terms of wage bracket and, so far, I have brought in some C wage bracket (players) as opposed to A – I need four As. I have seen a shift in the last four or five days in what people think and maybe their mindset, and I think that will shift again between now and August 3 (the start of the League Two season). There are some players who think they are going to get signed by clubs who are let go, so we need to be patient,” said Blackwell.