Best is yet to come

The Shakers striker has shared four goals with Mark Carter in the last two games - and insists the best is yet to come.

The division's most experienced strikeforce is hitting top form, earning rave reviews from their own boss and opposition managers.

Not bad for a pairing many critics feared would never work.

The Stant-Carter partnership conflicts with the widespread theory that you need one workhorse to cause defences trouble outside the box and one natural goalscorer to do the business inside it. There may have been a hint of accuracy in that earlier in the season when when Bury employed a long ball game.

But since new boss Stan Ternent put greater emphasis on passing, the two front men have never looked back.

They so far have 13 goals between them in 15 games and Stant - leading the club charts with seven - believes they can go from strength to strength.

"We're both goalscorers and we will always score goals," he says, "but we have to improve our games outside the box.

"It's no use us scoring and the team losing so we have to help the rest of the team by improving what we do outside the box." Carter, at 34 the elder of the pair by two years, adds: "With the new style of play we are trying to get the ball to feet which suits Phil and myself.

"Our strengths are holding the ball up and trying to turn and bring other players into play which is what we are doing at the moment. Neither of us is the quickest of players and our strength is not chasing lost causes over the top which were doing before."

Stant agreed: "Other teams had got used to our old style of play.

"We were tending to play more to their strengths than ours. We are not John Fashanu types who win everything in the air and the high balls were meat and drink to centre halves. "We both prefer it played to feet and we are benefitting from the new pattern of play.

"We are still learning to play the new style which we have been bringing in over the last few weeks and myself and Mark are still learning about each other as well. I'm sure we can still do better."

"Things have been going much better for the team in the last couple of games and hopefully we have turned the corner.

"We had a slow start but it's no big deal. There are still 90 points to play for and we intend to be right up there at the end of the season."

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