THE power of positive thinking is a key component in any sportsman’s armoury and something that will be key in the Bury dressing room this week.

Successive away defeats may have raised a few doubts about the way the team plays on the road and whether they are set up correctly to earn enough points to win promotion.

But I think the manager was spot on when he said it is not about ripping up the game plan and starting again – they just need to make a few tweaks and defend a bit better.

The worst thing you can do is over analyse a defeat because while you want to learn from it, footballers have a tendency to dwell on these things.

What they need to focus on is all of the good things they have been doing over the first few months of the season that has taken them to the top of the table.

As Flicker said, they are still in third place, it is not as if their season is unravelling.

He will have already highlighted what went wrong and taken his players through one or two technical aspects they can improve upon.

But once those discussions have taken place, they will draw a line under it and move on.

The most interesting part, for me, of the manager’s post-match analysis was his request for the younger players to have a chat with his experienced heads about what it takes to win promotion.

It is an interesting idea, almost like getting your senior players to do your work for you, but it has an impact.

When I was a young player coming through at Bury under Martin Dobson, we had old pros like Sammy McIlroy, Kenny Clements and Mark Higgins.

These were players who had done it at the top level for Manchester United, Everton and Manchester City – when they spoke, you listened.

What I definitely don’t want to see – and don’t expect to see – is the manager himself reverting from his positive attacking style.

He switched from a back-three to a back-four at half time at Wimbledon to deal with a very specific threat. That was the right thing to do and they outscored the Dons in the second half.

But there is no need to suddenly start adopting a negative style of play away from home.

Football is fast and frenetic in League Two and things often happen that you can’t legislate for. It doesn’t matter how much you play for the point, there will always be mistakes or freak goals.

The teams that score the most goals will always be the most successful at this level. Stick to that principle and Bury will not go far wrong.