Tim Ryan pleased as Bucks limit young Spireites' chances
And as Buxton’s assistant manager, his side’s well drilled and organised approach to keeping out a young Spireites side in a 0-0 draw was encouraging.
He said: “We played Burton Albion who had four or five first team players, again today Chesterfield had four or five who have played first team and the rest are first, second, third year pros.
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Hide Ad“We’ve limited them to minimum opportunities. The defensive shape seems to be blossoming as we continue pre-season.”
Ryan, in charge while boss Martin McIntosh is way on holiday, admits the Buxton side are not the complete package just yet.
Speaking after the stalemate at Silverlands, he said: “There’s still a long way to go, there’s still players to add and obviously we’ve got the captain Greg Young to come back.
“It’s not the final defence but they’re doing really, really well.”
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Hide AdBuxton could have hit the net themselves, guilty of wasting a couple of glorious opportunities.
Ryan acknowledged the visitors probably shouldn’t have left with a clean sheet of their own: “I think they had probably 70 per cent possession but there were two glaring chances and Brad Grayson had both of them.
“Fair play to their young keeper who stopped them with two solid saves. Ideally you want your strikers to score them.”
Assessing his side, with Young to return, Ryan is happy with the balance of youth and experience.
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Hide Ad“Down the spine of the team we’ve got Jan, Greg Young, Ricky Ravenhill and Lee Bennett up front, who is wily, knows the game,” he said.
“It’s a solid base and then we’ve a lot of legs a lot of pace around them.”