Exeter City FC

The former Crystal Palace and Southampton man had an interrupted start to his Grecians career – his first appearance at the Park was a Devon Derby win against Plymouth Argyle in October, but an injury sustained in the next fixture was the last action he saw until a return from the bench two weeks ago against Southend.

Butterfield completed the full fixture at Wycombe in midweek as the Grecians drew 1-1 at Adams Park.  He had also made a late substitute appearance at Rochdale.

And now he is just looking forward to stringing together a few games and slotting back into a defence that has had to once again use square pegs to plug the round hole in recent weeks.

“I feel good,” said Butterfield.  “It was good to get 90 minutes under my belt, after having been out for such a lot time.  It’s a big confidence boost and now I can look forward to Saturday.

“I had a tear in my soleus, which ended up meaning six weeks out.  But it’s good to be back now so I can move on.

“We started the season well and we had a couple of good results when I came in, but to lose the game against Hartlepool and for me to come off injured was a big disappointment for me personally.

“Because it’s a new club and I’d just arrived, I certainly wanted to be involved and playing my part as opposed to sitting and watching from the stands, which is certainly not what was planned.”

After a strong and dynamic performance against Wycombe – in which the Grecians came close to earning another victory from a trailing position, the defender feels that spirits have been lifted again in the camp.

The only goal that City conceded in Wycombe was an unfortunate deflected goal, and there was a surety about the rearguard that meant gave City a good base to work from.  And Danny is hopeful that the side can carry over that positive vibe into the home game against the Shakers on Saturday.

“Other than the deflected goal in the first half, I thought we were right in it and where we wanted to be,” he continued.  “When we got the equaliser we certainly pushed forward and looked the more likely team to go and win it – it’s just unfortunate we didn’t convert any of the half-chances towards the end.

“Because we finished the game on such a positive note, the lads are really looking forward to Saturday.  We want to put on a good performance, and hopefully that take win us the three points as well.

“We need to continue with the way we played in the second half against Wycombe.  We’ll take that into Saturday’s game, and if we play like that then we’ll be getting a lot more positive results than negative ones.

“Bury have had a sticky start to the season, but we’ve already seen that in this division anyone can beat anyone.  So we’ll need to be right on our game – they’ll be desperate for the points, and we need a win to put us right back in a promotion push.”