The Harriers completed their Bank Holiday fun with yet another defeat but this one was twice as bad as the result against Wycombe on Saturday.  This one had twice as many goals.

Jan Molby bought back Mickey Mellon at the expense of Simon Russell to add a bit of toughness in midfield but he didn't bring in a striker to score any goals.

After this defeat he has got to re-think his tactics re: Jesper Christiansen.  We cannot keep going through games without scoring and he has got to start looking at another option.  Again I say that Christie is not an option at the moment, Jan said as much himself in his after match comments to Trevor Owens.

His words went something like;  "Yes, I know that Jesper is not scoring but we have no one available to replace him, either on the bench or off it."

Owens asked him about Christie; "When he is fit he'll be on the bench for a couple of weeks.  He won't be starting any games for quite a while yet."

Rickards?  loan striker (proven)?

It took Bury as long as thirty minutes to score their first goal.  Harriers had started brightly enough for the first fifteen minutes without really threatening anything but once Bury had gotten into their stride there seemed to be no way of stopping them.

Following a chance for Simon Brown to get into the area, only for his way to be stopped, Bury had six attacks on our goal without managing to score but finally they did from David Nugent.

On 33 minutes a superb pass allowed Nugent to dart in between John Danby and Adi Viveash and hammer the ball into the back of the net.

Bury continued to bombard Danby with balls from all angles until eventually, from a corner, Lee Jenkins received a nasty injury.  He went up for the corner but clashed heads with someone and ended up being replaced with Chris McHale.  He could be out for the next few games.

On 39 minutes the ball broke free to Dean Keates on the edge of the area but his shot went over the bar.  Then came a chance for Brownie but a challenge from a Bury defender put him off his stride and the chance had gone.

With the 45 minute clock ticking down Bury increased their lead further.

Nugent picked up the ball in his own half of the field and accelerated towards our goal then passed to Chris Porter who chipped the ball over Danby and into the back of the net.

It was to get doubly worse in this half as we were now on our way to our first big defeat of the season and another stupid sending off.

Seven minutes into the half and Simon Brown, our only real chance of getting back into the game, was taken off, presumably with an injury.  Richie Appleby came on to replace him.

Soon after Mellon received his first booking for a rash challenge on Porter.  Flitcroft had been given the same punishment during the first half for a similar challenge on Dean Keates.

It was Porter that set up Flitcroft for the third goal for Bury.  He took a shot at goal but saw it well stopped by Danby.  He in turn could only palm it away to the edge of the area.  With no Harrier prepared to clear it Flitcroft pounced on the loose ball and cracked it past John and into the bottom corner of the goal.

It took just a couple of minutes for the Shakers to add their fourth and final goal when Nugent sprinted towards the Harriers defence, skipped past the defenders and rolled the ball across the goalmouth for Porter to tap home.

Luckily for the Harriers goals against column Nugent was then substituted and replaced with Jon Newby.

Wayne Hatswell went in the book almost immediately after and then came the first bit of luck for us when Flitcroft was sent off for another rash challenge.  He'd already had a talking to after his first booking but still hadn't heeded the referees warning.

We never had a chance to capitalise on our good luck because we decided to even it up again.  This time it was Mellon who was stupid as he went in with a two footed challenge on Porter.

In the dying seconds we could have pulled one back but Stuart Roberts somehow contrived to miss an open goal.

Orient at home next and a game that should be winnable.  Don't hold your breath for too long.