Latics' boss Paul Scholes admitted that the Bury team were fitter than his after they gave up a 1-0 half time lead to finally succumb 3-1 in Saturday's derby at Gigg Lane.
Scholes admitted, “I thought we did alright first-half especially, I thought we played some nice stuff and obviously got an early goal against a dangerous team. I knew Bury were a good side and I think second-half we just tired a little bit. I know we've had four games in two weeks, it's been a lot of work for the players and you saw the freshness in Bury's legs and we suffered towards the end. They're a threat [Lang and Dearnley], 'Langy' is a nuisance up there and puts himself about. He's got good movement, he's got a goal in him as we've seen and Zak is really quick as well and took up some really good positions to get into dangerous areas especially in the first-half, but as I say I think the second-half we tired.”
“I just think you account for it by tiredness because I know these players have the quality as we saw that in the first-half. We ended up sitting too deep in the second-half, these players have had so many games. Look, it's disappointing but we move on now. We've got another game next weekend and we start preparing on Monday for it. I'll give the players a couple of days off, they need some time off to rest from a really busy schedule after the last couple of weeks. If we see more of that first-half performance in games to come and I'm sure we'll do okay. But doing just that in the first-half isn't enough; we know we need to do it for the 90 minutes if we're going to win games, especially against the quality of Bury.”