Ronnie Jepson has insisted that Bury need to get better in ‘both boxes’ after suffering their eighth League Two defeat of the season to Torquay United on the weekend.
An Aaron Downes header and double from Paul McCallum were enough to sink Bury to a 3-1 defeat in a match played in stormy conditions at Gigg Lane on Saturday.
It was a heavy blow for Jepson as the Shakers fell back below Torquay in the table, dropping to 22nd, one place and three points above the drop zone.
“It was very disappointing,” an anguished looking Jepson said.
“We were getting lots of balls into the opponent’s box but it’s the same story-not getting on the end of it.
“We’ve got to be better in both boxes, we could have had four goals from set pieces alone and they weren’t hard chances. We just weren’t putting them away.”
Torquay capitalised on poor defending to open the scoring after 18 minutes as Aaron Downes bundled the ball home from Kevin Nicholson’s deep corner.
Bury were given hope six minutes later when William Edjenguele laid the ball off for Nathan Cameron who volleyed home the equalizer.
However this was short lived as McCallum headed home another corner to put the Gulls in front in the 29th minute and then rounded off the win when he found the top corner after 56 minutes from Elliot Benyon’s cutback.
Jepson believed the final score line flattered Alan Knill’s fellow strugglers, and was angry with the way Bury defended the two set pieces they conceded goals to.
“You’ve got to take a bit of pride, if you’re given a designated man to mark you make sure that man doesn’t score at all costs,” he said.
“We are getting done on too many set pieces at this moment in time and if we were strong enough in both boxes we’d be a decent team trust me.”
Bury were unable to force their way back into the match on the waterlogged pitch despite playing the better football and Jepson insisted the players have to be more clinical in front of goal.
“In their box we never put the chances away or the headers from corners, we could have had four or five from corners never mind from open play, an exasperated Jepson said.
“I’ve given people runs of games hoping they’d come to the fore in terms of goals and it’s not happened but saying that we could have scored enough today from set pieces to have won the game comfortably.”
Image courtesy of BFC via YouTube, with thanks.
For more on this story and many others, follow Mancunian Matters on Twitter and Facebook.
