Why is it going so wrong for the Brewers in this difficult season?
DEFENSIVE SOLIDITY, CREATIVITY IN MIDFIELD ARE BOTH MISSING
BURTON Albion go into tonight’s home game against Charflton Athletic (7pm) without a win in 14 games and desperately needing to turn around a run of form which saw them hit the bottom of League One on goal difference on Saturday.
Manager Jake Buxton is under pressure in his first season in charge and, on paper, Charlton, seven games unbeaten, will be favourites to add to the Brewers’ woes this evening.
Buxton had remained patient with his squad this season until Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at home to Northampton Town, when he acknowledged that harsh words had been said in the dressing room and that he felt his senior players, especially, could be giving him more.
And yet the poor form is nothing new. Burton had won only one of their last 10 matches, against rock bottom Southend United, when last season was curtailed.
Why, then, have things gone so wrong?
We all know about the pandemic but Burton have a decent squad, in theory, with Buxton able to make early signings in the summer.
Many people who are criticising him and the players now were praising the signings when they were made.
Here is a look at what has been happening in each area of the field.
GOALKEEPERS
The Brewers look in good shape. Ben Garratt made an awful mistake to concede the first goal away against Plymouth Argyle but was heroic against Hull City last week.
People would like to see him command his box more and that is a relative strength of Kieran O’hara’s. Neither keeper could have done too much about what has happened in front of them in a lot of games.
DEFENCE
The parts are not adding up a whole. Captain John Brayford guarantees effort and Sam Hughes has looked an excellent addition since joining on loan from Leicester City. Michael Bostwick has the experience and physique to be commanding but injury has kept him out for two spells already and right-back Neal Eardley has also had a spell out.
John-joe O’toole participated in every clean sheet for a long spell in his first season in the Burton defence but appears to be arguing with referees and wrestling with opponents more, rather than less, Jake Buxton urged him to show more discipline.
Left-back remains a position not wholly sorted out – again this season, five players have appeared there so far, including a spell for O’toole at Hull.
The most likely future regular left-back, Reece Hutchinson, has spent the first three and a half months of the season sidelined by a foot injury.
It all adds up to an unsettled back line but midfield players and forwards are involved, too, when defending corners and free kicks and Burton’s inability to do so has been a feature of the season.
They seem only to win first balls from a corner when the delivery is poor and is headed away by the first man – quite often, the smallest one, Stephen Quinn.
Burton cannot progress until this problem is sorted.
MIDFIELD
Quinn’s positional sense and competitive spirit appear undimmed and he put the most effective balls into the Northampton penalty area on Saturday, Niall Ennis being very unfortunate not to score from one of them when his shot hit both posts and stayed out. Teenager Ciaran Gilligan has impressed with his battling and workrate but it is too soon to expect him to be controlling games and he is often fire-fighting.
Joe Powell and Ryan Edwards have been disappointing. Edwards, so full of running and with the knack of arriving in the box at the right time last season, has not recovered that form yet since collecting a knee injury in pre-season.
Powell has suffered a dip in form, as young players will, after an explosive start to the season. There were high hopes that he would dominate midfield for Bur
ton this season and there remains the feeling that if he can bounce back to do so, he could be the key to a revival in fortunes.
Steven Lawless was another who arrived with high hopes, in theory the latest diamond picked up from the Scottish leagues. Patently talented, he has been a peripheral figure so far, though, seemingly struggling to settle to one particular role. Perhaps he needs to be told that one particular role is his.
The job of Jack Roles remains a mystery. Signed on loan from
Spurs after some mercurial displays in League Two for Cambridge United last season, he has scarcely featured and Buxton’s assertion that being away with Cyprus Under21s set him back in the pecking order is not entirely convincing.
It is one of those situations in which we cannot speculate accurately since, unlike the manager, we are not seeing what the player is doing in training day in, day out.
Burton are missing creativity and incisive passing from midfield. If there is to be progress, players like Powell, Lawless, maybe Roles, must soon start to provide it.
ATTACK
The strikers might justifiably point out that they have not been well served from the wings or through the middle.
Kane Hemmings has found himself isolated too often, for all that he battles, but five goals in six League games once he got off the mark, all the result of reacting quicker than others to spot half-chances or follow-up on rebounds, have shown what he can be about.
Lucas Akins, sad to say, is battling away as he always has but the club legend is not quite producing as much end product either in scoring or assisting as we know he can. Is this a spell he can emerge from? Perhaps Buxton’s unluckiest break as manager so far was to see Charles Vernam injured in the first game of the season.
No other player has run at opponents with the direct purpose Vernam has shown and an unbroken run in the side with end product to show for it is needed now.
There is hope, too, from Niall Ennis, who came so close to scoring on Saturday and has looked lively and capable of going past players since arriving on loan from Wolves.
Indiana Vassilev, on loan from Aston Villa, has, however, flattered to deceive.