Fourteen-game gap to last clean sheet tells its own story for struggling Brewers
DEFENSIVE INJURY LIST DATES BACK TO BEFORE THE SEASON
BURTON Albion 0 Gillingham 0, February 8, 2020, has an unwanted significance to the Brewers.
Apart from being an awful game, Steve Evans having brought his Gills side along with no more ambition than to take a point home, it was the last time Albion kept a clean sheet.
Furthermore, until Saturday and a 2-0 defeat against Plymouth Argyle, it was the last time they had failed to score in a competitive game.
The current circumstances ended last season early and precipitated a change of manager but that is still 14 matches without a clean sheet, an alarming record, and Burton have won only two of them within 90 minutes, against Southend United and Accrington Stanley.
Many circumstances, quite a lot of them without precedent, have made things difficult for the club and especially for Jake Buxton in his first management job. Nor, yet, has he been especially lucky with injuries.
John Brayford’s injury on Saturday meant that only Colin Daniel of the regular defenders in the squad has remained uninjured in the period since February – and he is a player Buxton would prefer to use further forward.
The Brewers have, therefore, not been able to field a settled back three or back four this season.
There are more problems than that, because they are conceding goals from set-pieces with alarming regularity and that involves more than just the back four and goalkeeper – Lucas Akins was honest enough to admit he had lost his man at a corner last week.
Buxton began the season in the Carabao Cup against Accrington with Neal Eardley at right-back, John Brayford and John-joe O’toole as centre-backs and Kieran Wallace at left-back.
All fine, the same four started the first League match the following week against Fleetwood Town – but Eardley was forced off with a quad injury after 69 minutes and O’toole sent off in the dying minutes to incur a three-match ban.
Michael Bostwick, who had been lining up as a defensive midfielder in the first two games, dropped into the back four for the Carabao Cup tie against Aston Villa next – and lasted 25 minutes until he sustained a calf injury.
Ben Fox had replaced Eardley at right-back and, after Bostwick’s injury, Daniel was back to leftback, Wallace moving into the middle.
The line-up of Fox, Brayford, Wallace and Daniel started for the first League win of the season, against Accrington and Buxton was probably grateful to be able to name an unchanged back four next time out, away to Swindon
Town, even if it was not what he would have considered his firstchoice defence.
Unfortunately, that back four was ripped to shreds by Swindon in an opening half-hour in which they roared to a 3-0 lead, not only by the Robins’ attacking play but by the way they pressured Burton when they did not have the ball.
O’toole returned from suspension in place of Wallace for the home game against Portsmouth but Burton conceded four again.
For Plymouth on Saturday, with O’toole now the recipient of a dead leg which kept him out, Bostwick returning from injury and loan signing Sam Hughes stepping in for his debut, Brayford was the only survivor of the Plymouth back four.
Buxton had tried a 3-5-2 formation in midweek in the EFL Trophy against Cambridge United and he opted for it again against Plymouth, with Brayford and
Hughes flanking Bostwick. The three looked comfortable and one barnstorming early run by Hughes out of defence and deep into Plymouth territory showed that he has the confidence to carry the ball.
But talk about the best-laid plans. Brayford played a ball up the line in the 12th minute and went down in obvious discomfort. Stephen Quinn quickly indicated to the bench that the captain would not be carrying on. Although the Brewers conceded an awful goal, through Ben Garratt’s mistake, the sort of thing a manager cannot legislate for, the back three continued to look generally sound, Hughes moving to the other side of Bostwick and Wallace coming off the bench on the left of the three.
Oddly, we did not get to see whether or not Burton would now be better at defending corners because Plymouth were disinclined to pump the ball into the danger area from the ones they had.
At one point it was the smallest Brewer, Quinn, who headed a corner away and Quinn again who headed away the follow-up cross.
That Bostwick did not appear after half-time and that it was confirmed to be because of a recurrence of his calf problem, is ominous.
Bostwick has had an availability record to match that of Lucas Akins for most of his career but he had a few injury problems last season. Buxton must hope they do not continue to recur.
On top of all of this, the Brewers have been missing one defender since before the season.
The manager’s bad luck with injuries to his squad began before the players returned to training when left-back Reece Hutchinson tripped over a kerb and injured his foot while out for a run.
Things have gone quiet in the last couple of weeks about Hutchinson’s likely return and, even when he is fit, he will be without a pre-season.
Right now, Buxton and the Brewers could do with a stroke of luck.
That Bostwick did not appear after half-time and that it is confirmed to be a recurrence of his calf problem is ominous