DAVID Flitcroft has missed out on the League Two manager of the month award for September to former Wanderers assistant Phil Brown.

Defeat at Exeter in the final match of the month hit his chances, with Bury taking 10 points from a possible 15, while Brown’s Southend recorded four wins and a draw.

But the Shakers boss is already in line to challenge for the honour for October after kicking off the month with back-to-back wins.

Victory over Tranmere last Saturday saw them return to the League Two summit, and Bury followed that up by booking their place in the area quarter-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy with a 3-1 win at home to Morecambe on Tuesday.

Flitcroft remains adamant that performances, not results or personal honours, are what interest him most at this stage of the season.

And with a difficult trip to Wimbledon tomorrow, he has warned that talk of promotion and possible titles are far too premature.

“I don’t know who is thinking that we are going to win every game this season,” he said.

“Anyone who does is deluded and unintelligent – it’s not going to happen.

“Arsenal – the invincibles - did it, but football has changed.

“We want to be a team that’s competitive, but you are not in control.

“It might be a bad decision doesn’t go our way - at Exeter two mistakes cost us.

“So we can only control our business and that’s what we will definitely be looking to do at Wimbledon on Saturday.”

Flitcroft and his players will be hoping to extend their slender one-point lead at the top of League Two this weekend with the lessons of Exeter still clear in their minds.

But the Bury boss has played down the impact of that defeat, preferring to concentrate on the positives taken from their last away performance, when they came back from a goal down and were unlucky to concede a late winner.

“One thing we have got is a desire and ambition to be top of the league,” said Flitcroft.

“We have an ambition to be up there, but after the defeat at Exeter, there was a calmness - we didn’t get too carried away and we concentrated on the performance.

“It was important that we didn’t lose sight of our performance - it’s how you bounce back from a defeat that counts.”

Captain Jim McNulty is expected to return on Saturday after sitting out Tuesday night’s win with an ankle knock, while only James Poole and long-term casualty Keil O’Brien are ruled out through injury.