Bury manager David Flitcroft has suggested that working with Sam Allardyce helped Blackpool’s Neil McDonald improve results ahead of their clash on Saturday.
The Seasiders, relegated from the Championship with six games to go last season, had been marooned at the bottom of League One, but sit 19th after five league games unbeaten.
Meanwhile, the Shakers’ fortunes have reversed in October having won just once since going through September with a 100% winning record.
Flitcroft said the upturn in form for the Tangerines is not surprising, suggesting that McDonald’s work with new Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce at Bolton, Blackburn and West Ham is paying off.
“Neil McDonald has done a lot of work with Sam and had a lot of exposure to Sam’s methods,” Flitcroft said.
“He’s process driven and methodical in his work, when you’re like that and understand, that if you don’t react to just defeats, that it always comes good.
“It’s just whether in that the chairman sticks with you and stays on plan – that’s what’s happened and he’s just carried on [with his job].”
Earlier this week, Bury drafted in Daniel Bachmann from Stoke City as a second emergency loan signing to cover the injured goalkeeper Rob Lainton.
First replacement Aaron McCarey returned to his parent club Wolves following an injury after playing in the Shaker’s 2-0 loss to Shrewsbury last weekend.
The club have suffered from a series of injuries throughout the season with Lainton joining Kelvin Etuhu, Daniel Nardiello and Ryan Lowe, who have all been side-lined for a lengthy period.
Flitcroft stressed the importance of managing the current injury situation to prevent a ‘crisis’ but indicated that he regrets not bringing more squad players in during the transfer window.
“A [injury] crisis becomes a crisis when you don’t manage it right,” he said.
“Would I do something differently next season? Probably I’d add two more bodies to the squad.”
“We’ve got to be really careful how we plan it, if we want to do well in this league we need more resources at it to build a bigger squad, but we don’t want to ‘down-spec’ on our quality.”
“It’s something we’ve got to look at to understand the dynamics of how we work and the data we’ve got on players could maybe lead to a different strategy next year.”
Image courtesy of Bury FC via YouTube, with thanks.
