Bury manager Kevin Blackwell spoke to BBC Radio Manchester and his club's official website ahead of his side's League One game against Carlisle at Gigg Lane this evening, Blackwell hoping for a first win of the season for the Shakers:
"The morale is good. We've played four games against teams in the top ten of the league and we should really have stayed unbeaten. We know we're not far away, but we've got to turn being close into wins. This is still the early part of the season and we've got to make sure that at the end of that marathon, we're in a position to stay in this division. That's all I'm bothered with. The second half at Crawley was a big positive and we've got to try and carry that on into Tuesday.
“But, there is a lack of belief and it’s about having courage. Unfortunately, if it can go wrong for us at the moment it will go wrong. I’ve said to the players that when you are at the top of the league, everyone wants your players, when you are at the bottom, nobody wants your players. It makes it harder to get players in, it’s easier said than done with the position we are in. But, we will work hard as a club, one thing that Bury has always been known for it that we work hard, we roll our sleeves up and we don’t give up.
“That’s the mentality I want from the players and we saw that on Saturday. I made a comment last week and I have to be guarded with what I say, I cannot make comments like I made last week. I do want the players to know how I feel and how I am thinking; they don’t need me going on about it all the time.
“Now it’s Carlisle and if we play like they did in the second half at Crawley then we can beat them. I was confident in the second half that we would win the game. I said before the game that we could get a result. We knew it would be tough in the first 40 or 50 minutes. We gave away a stupid goal just before half time, so we had to pick the players up again. All I seem to be doing is picking the players up, it would be great for them if they came in with something to hang their hats on. They haven’t done that, every time they are chasing the game.”
In team news for the Shakers this evening they have four absentees, with three of them being strikers. In those forward ranks David Healy is away on international duty with Northern Ireland, while Lenell-John Lewis is out for a couple of months after picking up a knee injury at the end of September and Hull-loanee Mark Cullen had to be substituted midway through the first-half of the 3-2 defeat at Crawley on Saturday with a shin problem.
That means, that with full-back Phil Picken also out for the season after suffering serious knee ligament damage in early September, recently appointed Shakers boss dipped into the loan market yesterday to sign two 19-year olds from Leeds for a month, in striker Dominic Poleon and central midfielder or right-back Zac Thompson. The final bit of squad news for Bury being that third-choice goalkeeper Christian Dibble has been away in Slovenia for the past week on international duty with the Wales under-19 side.
The referee for tonight’s match is Mark Brown from Hull and he will be assisted down the lines by Anthony Tankard from Sheffield and David McCallum from Wallsend. Meanwhile the fourth official is Karl Evans from Wigan.