BURY head for Oldham tonight determined to turn the Second Division table upside down.

Saturday's defeat at the hands of Stoke City has dumped Andy Preece's men three points adrift at the bottom, a far cry from the fortunes of the Boundary Park side.

They currently lie in joint second place with 16 points from their opening eight games.

That's 13 more than the luckless Shakers have managed and Preece believes it's high time their eight-game losing stretch came to an end.

"Hopefully, it will be a turnaround from two seasons ago when we went there flying and they didn't have a win to their name," said Preece.

"They beat us 2-0 and never looked back after that.

"It's a local derby and form goes out of the window in these games.

"It's a case of who wants it more and I'm determined that our players will be in the right frame of mind."

Preece has slight doubts about Lee Unsworth (groin) and Harpal Singh (calf) and will leave it as late as he can to select his starting eleven.

Striker Ian Lawson is okay after taking a knock on the head during Saturday's match.

Lawson -- a target of Latics boss Andy Ritchie in the past -- will be hoping to get his Bury goalscoring tally off the ground in his second spell at the club.

He looked to be forging a useful combination with Jon Newby on Saturday and much will depend on how the strikers hit it off in the coming weeks.

Add the wing magic of Harpal Singh, who also had a loan spell at Oldham, to the equation and sooner or later some team are going to cop it!

Another glimmer of hope for the Shakers is that Oldham have been described as grinding out results rather than winning games in style.

Nevertheless, they are the league's top scorers, have won their last three home games and have lost just one game in nine.

They could include striker John Eyre in their squad. He was ruled out of Saturday's 2-2 draw at Brentford with flu, but is expected to be fit for tonight.

Defender Shaun Garnett is missing with a knee injury and Tony Carss is not expected to have recovered from an ankle injury in time.

Despite the club's miserable run, Preece is remaining upbeat and refuses to succumb to any outside pressures.

Confident in his ability to sort out the present situation, he sees nothing but a bright future for the Shakers.

"As far as I am concerned, this club is in a lot stronger position than when I took over 18 months ago," he declared.

"We have cut £1 million off the wage bill, lost eight or nine experienced players and have a good crop of youngsters who are worth money.

"If they are all here in two or three years we will have a hell of a team.

"We have to withstand this bad run, but there is no need to panic.

"Obviously, I don't want to be bottom of the league, but if the players continue to work hard and create as many chances as they have in the last three games then the tide will turn."