Bury and Southend meet at Gigg Lane tonight in a game that will help define where Wanderers’ season is headed.

The promotion pendulum swung in favour of the Shakers after Wycombe’s 0-0 draw against AFC Wimbledon on Saturday coupled with their 1-0 victory against Portsmouth.

It left David Flitcroft’s team two points behind the Chairboys, meaning that if they beat fifth place Southend in their game in hand tonight they will knock Blues out of the final automatic promotion spot.

“They have to go and win,” said Sam Wood. “There’s a lot of pressure on them and it’s going to be a big game.

“They both won today (Saturday), they’re in good form and they’re fighting for the spot that we’ve got at the minute. All we can do is win our games and hopefully it works out for us.”

A Bury victory is not a given considering they face League Two’s form side, with Phil Brown’s Southend having racked up five straight wins as they look to make their own promotion dreams a reality.

Wanderers fans, and their manager, will be hoping for a draw which would keep their fate in their own hands heading into the final two games of the season.

Gareth Ainsworth said: “It’s in Bury’s hands now to get themselves promoted. They’ve got to catch us still, we’re in third place and the table doesn’t look that bad.”

“There’s a big game on Tuesday night which both teams aren’t going to want to lose, and I’m hopeful that we’ll still be in third place going into our game next Saturday against Morecambe.”

Wycombe’s current points total of 81 would have been enough to see them promoted in three of the last four seasons and Wood is hoping two more wins will be enough to see them reach League One.

He said: “It’s amazing. I was speaking to Hayesy (Paul Hayes) and he was at Scunny (Scunthorpe) last year and they went up with 81.

“We’re on 81 now, the highest total in the club’s history, and it’s still not in our hands. We were struggling last year to get 50 points and now we’ve got 81. We’ve still got two games to go, we can finish up on 87 and hopefully that’s enough for us.”