Bury are the visitors to Spotland this Tuesday night in the second round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.
It is the first meeting between the two sides since January following Dale’s relegation to League Two at the end of last season.
Despite the recent gruelling schedule for Rochdale, Assistant Manager Jimmy Bell has ruled out making wholesale changes for the fixture.
Speaking ahead of the encounter, Bell said: “There’s a lot of rivalry between Rochdale and Bury and we are obviously sick that we are not playing in the same league as them this year as staying in League One was our aim last season.
“We really look forward to these types of games and it is a good time for us to be playing them and we hope that we can carry on our winning form. We said earlier in the season when we were playing well that we didn’t have that winning mentality but at the moment we are not playing particularly well but we have got that knack of winning which is a good thing.”
He continued: “It is a game we think we can win, it is a competition that we want to have a good run in and trophy we want to win, that is our aim. We’ve got a good squad and people do need games but we’re going to approach this in a professional manner. There might be one or two changes here and there, but there might have been those changes anyway. We’re going out to win this game.”
The last time the two sides met was on January 28th, a match which marked the first game in charge for Manager John Coleman and Bell after they took over the managerial reigns at Spotland earlier that week.
Dale romped to a 3-0 win over the Shakers on the day, and Bell is looking to emulate that this time round: “That first game that we played was a fantastic occasion for us with the crowd and the way that the team played.
It does seem like a long time ago now and we’ve got a completely different squad of players now but it was a great performance that day and we’ll be looking to emulate that on Tuesday night.”