Swindon Town

JAY McEveley believes that Town will have to match Bury’s battling qualities if they are to get anything from Saturday’s game at Gigg Lane.

Having recently appointed Kevin Blackwell as manager, McEveley says that the Shakers will be looking to prove a point and will be at their most dangerous as a result.

He said: “I’ve been in a position before where I’ve been at a club and the manager has changed - it’s a clean slate for everyone and everyone is trying their hardest to get in that starting eleven. It will be the same on Saturday: they’ve got a new manager so people who haven’t been playing might come into the fold and give 110% and that’s when a team’s at their most dangerous because they’re all at the races. It’s going to be a battle but we’re going to have to match them first then hopefully our quality will shine through.

“It gives you a boost because he comes in and it’s a clean slate. You’ve just got to prove at training that you’re worthy of a place if he decides to change it and you’ve got to take your chance with both hands if you’ve not been playing. If you have been you’ve got to make sure you stay in his starting 11 and his mindset so everyone at Bury will be at the races to get in his first 11.

“We’ve got to make sure we fight that with our hard work, our closing down and our pressing and hopefully we can play our football.”

After Tuesday’s defeat to Colchester, the full-back says that the Town are determined to turn things around against Bury.

“We set our stall out, we wanted to win that game. We feel like we need to have a good home form but it was just one of those nights where we weren’t at the races. We’ve got a chance to put it right, get three points on the board and get back in that top six where we want to be.

“They seemed to want it more than us and that’s not right, that’s not us at all. The first thing we do is we go out and we work hard, that’s the main focus of our team and we’re very fit. I can’t put my finger on it but we watched the whole 90 minutes to analyse our team performance looking where we can improve and move on.”