IT is back to the classroom for Bury as they bid to right the wrongs of Tuesday night's 5-1 defeat at Oxford United.

The match was moved forward after their opponents reached Sunday's Checkatrade Trophy final.

They will now take advantage of a 10-day break before returning to action against Bradford next weekend.

Manager Lee Clark says a prolonged gap between games will allow for extra rest and preparation as his “jaded” side gear up for the final five matches of the season.

"We can’t go from Saturday – when we got a point at home to Fleetwood and things were going great – to then start panicking and getting concerned,” Clark said.

“It’ still the same situation. We performed poorly against Oxford and we bounce on.

“There’s an opportunity to get good work into the players and also give one or two a rest.

"Our problem is we’re asking one or two players to deliver every game.

“There’ll be plenty of hard work on the training ground because I think we have looked a bit jaded.

"There’ll be plenty of classroom work and also on the grass too.

"We need to get the confidence levels back.

“We’ll dust ourselves down and we’ll look forward to Bradford City now.”

While Bury made sense of their mauling at the Kassam Stadium, fellow strugglers Shrewsbury and Port Vale will hoping to cash in on their games in hand.

The Shakers’ fate is now out of their own hands.

If all the relegation-threatened sides pick up maximum points over the next week then Clark’s side will drop back into the bottom four – but that is a big ‘if’, which does not worry the Bury boss too much.

“There’s nothing I can do about it now. I can only affect the games that we’re involved in," added Clark.

“It’s all right having games in hand but you’ve got to win them. These teams face a lot of games – Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday – while we will take advantage of the break to re-group and go again.”