FOOTBALL – Mike Fowler praises impact of debutant as Redditch United held by Bury Town

MIKE Fowler praised the impact of debutant defender Alex Foreshaw after Redditch United battled to a 1-1 draw away at Bury Town.

An early goal from Danny King put the Reds ahead before Callum Page drew Bury level later in the first half at Ram Meadow.

Fowler introduced centre-back Foreshaw from the bench for his debut late on as the latter hit the woodwork and then cleared a shot off the line in a chaotic start to his Reds career.

And Fowler feels the experienced defender will bring confidence to his backline and also spoke about forward Tyler Bruck’s departure to Rugby Town on a 28-day loan.

Fowler said: “Alex is a man-mountain, when he came on it was probably the most chaotic four or five minutes of his career.

“He’s a fantastic defender, I’ve watched him at Darlaston and he’s held that group together and taken them through the levels.

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“Anything that comes into the box, he heads out, his clearances are proper clearances, he’s just a proper bloke.

“Tyler just needed to go out and play. He’s coming on for 10 or 15 minutes at the end of games and kicking people and running around.

“That’s not in the best interests of Tyler or the team. He scored on his debut [for Rugby Town], I’m absolutely delighted for him.

“If he can go on a run of scoring goals for them and then come back in for the last four or five games and help us.”

The draw sees Redditch drop out of the Southern League Premier Central play-off places.

And Fowler admits the draw was a fair result despite his side twice hitting the woodwork.

Fowler added: “It was a good game of football. I think the result was fair albeit we should score straight after we’ve scored the first one.

“The ball was bouncing around in their penalty area and we just haven’t got the nous to tuck it away which sums us up really.

“I was really pleased with the way we started because we didn’t start particularly well in the last game.

“We asked an incredible amount of questions in the second half and caused them a lot of problems and it was one-way traffic.”

Redditch are next in action against West Bromwich Albion in the quarter-finals of the Birmingham Senior Cup on Monday, March 16 with kick-off at 7.45pm at the Valley Stadium.