3rd - Bury

A year on, and you could easily claim that Knill has more than matched our manager's efforts as the ginger haired one as led the Shakers to within a pitch invasion of automatic promotion in his first full season.

Looking at things now, there's no reason at all to thing anything less of Knill. If you're being hyper critical of him, you could say that he's been given the benefit of a wage budget that has surpassed the previous incumbents of the Shakers hot seat, but it's not like he's been given a Man City style money pot to play with. It's been good quality management and nothing more.

However, Knill's success could eventually be his side's downfall, as his name has been linked already with a number of jobs at higher divisioned sides, and another season of success will make it impossible to keep his name off the radar. The right offer could just tempt him away, as any manager at this level will know they are just one bad run away from serious question marks being raised against his management.

For me, Bury's biggest strength was their consistency. A settled side helped for sure, but with almost a routine monotony from January onwards, they hardly lost a game. Win, draw, win, draw all the way. The philosophy being if you're not going to win, make sure you don't lose, and it came so close to paying off for the Shakers - a philosophy usually reserved for teams who play a more direct style of football than Bury.

Within one or two goals of automatic promotion depending on which version of the rules you hear, it took a wonder show from Shrews keeper Luke Daniels in the second leg of the Play Offs to deny them what would otherwise be a very much deserved trip to the new Wembley.

Their team has certainly been strengthened over the Summer, though if I'm being critcial, other areas were more of a priority to strengthen. They had a strong forward line up last season which could be relied upon to take advantage of the chances that came their way, and they have made significant improvements to it.

Bishop will get his usual tally of goals this time round, but they've replaced the departing Hirst with Ryan Lowe from Chester to the envy of many a side around. Lowe has always been a decent striker at this level, and he produced arguably the best season in his career last time out by grabbing eighteen goals for relegated Chester.

If that wasn't enough, they've signed Danny Carlton from Carlisle. Carlton may not have quite repeated the goalscoring ability that helped secure the Conference title for Morecambe a couple of years ago, but he has shown that he can certainly do a job in the Football League, and you won't get many better strikers in this division ready to come off the bench for you.

And if those aren't enough, they have the aging warhorse Andy Morrell who always looks like there's a real risk of him not being alive at the final whistle of any game he takes part in, even as a late substitute. He showed with his nine goals in thirty odd games last season that he's another option for them to call upon when need be. Morrell makes it four quality strikers, all of which are capable of scoring goals.

One concern that we raised when previewing the Shakers this time last year was Efe Sodje, as we queried whether his legs would hold out as he approached his 36th birthday. As it turned out, there were no such worries, with his partnership with Ben Futcher being one of the pivotal parts of the side.

A year on that question still holds. It was answered last time out very firmly, but that offers no guarantees that he'll automatically make the season through to being 37. There will come a stage  in his career where Sodje goes a game too far as many, many players do, and if that happens to be this season, then it could throw a real spanner in the works for Bury.

But if you're picking out one player that their season depends on, then look no further than Stephen Dawson, and his influence on the Shakers last time was plain to see. The only two games they lost in the second half of the season were games in which Dawson was sent off, and then the subsequent suspension. Dawson, who we looked to sign in the Summer of 2008, is a real class act, and I fully expect him to be attracting even more suitors this season.

There's clearly plenty of potential for it to go horribly wrong for the Shakers. Looking at their stats from last year, that settled side was very clear to see with eight players having played in over forty of their league games. Their squad wasn't as tested as perhaps other clubs' squads were, and if you scratch under the surface, they don't appear to have the quality to back up in defence and in midfield that they have up front.

They've also lost the services of Elliott Bennett from the midfield after he returned to Wolves, which for all their riches they have up front, is going to cut out a lot of the service that was provided to them. Whilst they will remain a very dogged midfield which will battle all day, Bennett's absence will signifcantly hurt their creativity.

So if its going to go wrong for Bury this season, it'll be that absence of creativity coupled with the paper thin squad, but there's more than enough evidence to suggest that its going to be another good season for the Shakers. They are strong in all areas, and no side will receive an easy game when facing them.

One attribute they possess more than perhaps any other in the division is a lot of characters in the side - big personalities with bags of experience behind them, and that'll certainly ensure that they don't fall victim to any Play Off hangover from last season - if anything, they'll use that to spur themselves on to bigger and better things. Automatic promotion beckons for Bury.

Sorry.

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