Bury 0 Notts County 4 by Chris Hall: ALL the promising work from Shakers' last two matches was spectacularly unravelled as their survival hopes took a real pounding at Gigg Lane.

With all the financial uncertainty surrounding the club off the field, this was a performance Bury FC really could have done without and one which left them teetering just two points above the drop zone with seven nerve-wracking games to go.

What made it so disappointing for both manager Andy Preece and the 5,435 fans who braved the wintry conditions to again answer the club's SOS plea, was the ease with which the defence crumbled to allow their relegation rivals to steal four breathtakingly simple goals.

The first came after just five minutes, when Danny Allsopp was allowed a free header inside the box and buried it past Paddy Kenny.

Less than 15 minutes later, the visitors were two up as Paul Heffernan easily shook off the embarrassingly weak challenges of Michael Nelson and Jamie Stuart to power his shot home.

Allsopp was then somehow allowed to drift into the penalty area unchallenged as he chased a Heffernan flick header past a stationary back four and slot the ball past a helpless Kenny.

And with Bury still gathering breath for a second half charge, County knocked the wind from their sails with their fourth goal coming just three minutes after the interval as Marcel Cas was allowed to skip through a string of would-be challenges on his route to goal.

Preece brought himself on to try and change things for the better in the final 30 minutes but, apart from a typically hard-working performance from striker Jon Newby, there was very little for the home spectators to be cheerful about.

"I'm just scratching my head to explain it, especially after our last two performances," said Preece.

"To come out and defend the way we did was just shocking and I was looking in disbelief at the way we defended those goals.

"Our defence has been the platform for our last two performances. Our back four have been superb and they have been given credit for it. But today we just didn't defend and that's why we lost the game.

"There were other areas where we didn't play well throughout the team and we just always seemed half a yard too slow. If you defend poorly, you get punished.

"John Newby was causing all sorts of problems and even at half-time I thought we still had a chance. But once they got the fourth goal it was all over.

"The players have been told, in no uncertain terms, that performances like that are unacceptable but we aren't going to give up. Some of the fans might have given up on us but we are still above the relegation zone and we just have to learn from our mistakes now and bounce back."

Bury: Paddy Kenny, Sam Collins, Martyn Forrest, Gareth Seddon, Paul Reid, Lee Connell, Jason Jarrett, Michael Nelson, George Clegg, Jon Newby, Jamie Stuart. Subs: Glyn Garner, Danny Swailes, Andy Preece, David Borley, Ian Lawson.