Can 7-0 demolition finally kickstart Buxton’s season?

Diego De Girolamo - hat-trick.Diego De Girolamo - hat-trick.
Diego De Girolamo - hat-trick.
Struggling Buxton may have finally kick-started their season in style with Tuesday night’s 7-0 home demolition of Grantham Town.

But now manager Paul Phillips has challenged them to prove what a good side they are by stringing results together.

The huge win came three days after a brave 2-1 FA Cup exit against unbeaten York City and lifted the injury-hit Bucks off bottom spot ahead of Saturday’s trip to FC United of Manchester.

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Diego De Girolamo and a Liam Hardy penalty had Buxton in complete control within eight minutes, Diego finishing with a hat-trick, Jude Oyibo with a brace and Connor O’Grady the other.

“I thought we were superb against Grantham - everyone to a man,” said Phillips.

“The back four kept a clean sheet which we’d demanded as we haven’t been doing.

“We scored seven goals and we could have had a few more as well.

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“A lot of people were saying it’s only Grantham. Well, no disrespect, but if they had won last Tuesday they could have gone second in the league.

“Last night shows how much we have under-achieved.

“We are a very good team and we’ve now got to start putting the results together to show that.

“We have to start winning games – not just one. We have to start winning three, four, five, six, seven together on the bounce.

“We want to get in the play-offs and as high up that league as possible and I still believe we can.

“We have not had a good start but hopefully that’s a blip.”

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Phillips said he felt the Grantham win had been coming, with Buxton playing well, despite injuries, and doing everything apart from putting the ball in the net.

“Even the Saturday before it was small margins when we had chances, didn’t take them and got caught with a sucker,” he said.

“The injuries have got to settle down a bit now and we need a little bit of luck.

“We are playing good football. If you speak to the spectators, even though patience-wise they don’t like it when you’re getting beat, last Saturday and this Saturday, they know we played some great football.

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“We got the ball down and tried to play football the right way. Now we just need to get the rewards for it and that comes by putting the ball in the net.”

The Bucks came close to an upset against York and Phillips said: “I think we deserved more out of the game on Saturday than we got.

“We didn’t take our chances against a very, very good York team. But our performance was very good.

“To a man we got everything right tactically but just didn’t take our chances against a team 12 unbeaten in the league above.

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“To say we could have won it is probably a bit of an understatement, we deserved at least a draw. We just needed a little bit of luck.”

Along with long term injured Callum Chippendale, the Bucks now also have Warren Clarke, Kyle Harrison, and Brian Wilson, on the treatment table with Diego De Girolamo playing on with sore calves.

“It’s the way things have been going lately,” said Phillips.

“We have four or five days to recover, and hopefully we can get a few players back.

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“But Tuesday night also saw one or two players put themselves in the shop window for a place on Saturday when they would probably have found themselves out the picture without these injuries.”

On the trip to FC United, he added: “It’s a local one for me. They are a big club who have come down from the league above.

“We have got to go there and put on a show.

“We will rest this week, work on stuff on Thursday and go there in the right frame of mind to, hopefully, get a victory.”

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