Manager Graham Alexander is expecting a difficult test when his side travel to face Bury at the weekend.
United remain unbeaten in the league and the boss is proud of his players’ efforts over the last few games.
Speaking to iFollow Iron, Alexander looked ahead to the game at Gigg Lane, with an insight into the opposition and team news.
ON THE BURY GAME…
GA: It’s a tough place to go. They’ve got a very good squad there and a very experienced manager, so we know it will be a competitive game. You have to go there and you have to compete at the highest level to get anything from it. We’ve been buoyed by the last few results that we’ve managed to get. I think it’s a fantastic return from the players to go out there and compete at that level and play as well as they have, but we have to go and do it each week. We can only concentrate on the next test. We know from last season how tough these games are and we expect the same competitive level again this week.
ON THE SHAKERS’ SQUAD…
GA: They’ve got a very strong squad where they can change their team quite often. They’ve got some real good players there and they’ve recruited really well. You know when playing a team that’s been at the same level as you, you will come up against some former players from both sides. You have to take that out of the equation, we did that last week with Jamie Ness playing. We will concentrate on ourselves. If we can get the performance level we’ve had from the last few games, and to be fair from the last year, from the group of players, then we will give ourselves the best chance of winning. Whoever we are playing, if we don’t perform at the level we can then we are going to get beat anyway, so our focus 90 per cent of the time is on what we can do, what we need to continue to do well, what we need to do better and give the opposition a tough opponent to face.
ON TEAM CHANGES…
GA: Everyone who is fit has played in the last two games and I think they’ve all done 90 minutes. That’s a fantastic situation for me as a manager and both games were won, and won well. That’s a real good position for me to be in. We know we’ve got options, we know we can tweak the team if needed and keep the strength of the squad as high as we need it to be. I was delighted with all of the players over the last two games. I thought going down to Plymouth was a tough game for us, but we performed very, very well, physically and in the game. Then to change the team almost completely for the Sunderland game, I thought the output of the team physically was fantastic and the approach was brilliant. It resulted in a really good win. The players are in a really good place that’s pushing forward to improve and to win games. I know whichever team I put out there on Saturday they will have to show that same mentality because there are players pushing strongly for starting positions.
ON TEAM NEWS…
GA: We’ve got the squad of 20 players who we have had for the last two games, who are fit. We’ve got no new fresh injury worries from Tuesday or Saturday, so we will go to Bury with the same 20 players.
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