EXPERIENCED defender Peter Clarke is glad to see Bury come through their “sticky spell” and still be sitting pretty in mid-table.

The Shakers hit a slump in form after the turn of the year but having picked up 11 points in the last five games, Clarke says the team have now come out on the other side.

The former Everton and Blackpool centre-half remains positive with his eyes fixed on those teams above Bury in the table, not below.

“I think it has been a steady season,” said Clarke. “I think it has been a season of progress.

“We had a really good spell through the September-October period, which I think raised expectation.

“You want to do the best you can and you want to be as high in the division as you possibly can be, but there was always going to be a time where we went through a sticky spell.

“It wasn’t too long ago that we perhaps fought through that but we seem to have come out of the other side of it and we seemed to have picked up a good amount of points over the past few weeks.

“We are not a million miles off those top-six places. I think at the beginning of the season the target was to get to 50 points as soon as possible. We are not too far off and if we get there then we can kick on and see where the performances will take us between now and the end of the season.”

The 34-year-old has been a constant at the heart of the defence, racking up 39 appearances since joining from Blackpool in the summer.

And as he closes in on his 600th career appearance, which is only five games away, he hopes his experience can help those around him, even if they are not natural centre-halves.

“You have seen quite a few things along the way,” Clarke added. “You learn one or two things and you perhaps guide one or two of your younger team-mates and use a little bit of that experience.

“It is nice to get clean sheets and I think Reece Brown has done well.

“Tom Soares the other night, he didn’t know until just before the game that he was going to play there, but I thought he put in a really good performance, and obviously Nathan Cameron speaks for himself.

“He was having a good season and it is now a shame he will miss the rest of the campaign.”

The Shakers travel to Rochdale on Saturday on the back of a poor away run, conceding 12 goals in three defeats. Clarke is unsure why Bury have been so poor on the road, but he is confident the lads are all pulling in the same direction.

And when asked why the home and away form have been so contrasting, he said: “If I knew that, I would be a very wealthy man – and I’d maybe be managing at Real Madrid.

“There have been one or two games, perhaps at Coventry and Wigan, where we, as a whole, probably didn’t start either game particularly well.

“I can’t put my finger on the difference between home and away but we are going to work hard and we are trying to better our away form.”