Signs are that Brewers are in a better place than recently
HULL City’s 5-0 win away to Wigan Athletic on Wednesday night was just one of the recent events to put into context just how far Burton Albion have come in the last month under Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
This was the same Hull City who could not manage a shot on target against the Brewers 11 days before and much the same Wigan who came to the Pirelli Stadium and won 4-3 in Jake Buxton’s last game in charge.
They are clearly missing injured striker Kyle Joseph, who scored a hat-trick against the Brewers.
Hull’s thrashing of Wigan was another result, one of many recently, that did nothing to harm Burton’s hopes of escaping the relegation zone.
It has been uncanny how many results have favoured the Brewers, especially during the recent spell when they had four matches postponed.
Not long ago, they had the worst goal difference in the bottom six, now Wigan are seven goals worse off, Swindon Town two worse off and Northampton Town four.
It hardly needs repeating that goal difference is worth an extra point in a tight finish.
The other big change now is in the games played column and that change has come quickly.
After Burton lost 1-0 at home to Ipswich Town in Hasselbaink’s second game in charge, on January 16, they had played 24 matches, two more than anyone else in League One, five more than Bristol Rovers and Doncaster Rovers and six more than Accrington Stanley.
I wrote at the time that the advantage might be that the Brewers would not face the same fixture pileup some clubs would.
Then Covid-19, the FA Cup (for which the Doncaster game was postponed) and the weather took a hand and there were four postponements in quick succession.
The people who sneered that Burton welcomed these postponements while they bedded in their new signings are so far off the mark it is ridiculous.
Three wins in four, each with a clean sheet and all while players were coming in and going out of the club shows that Hasselbaink was able to guide his players past that particular issue.
The only time they did not look together as a team and getting their roles right in those four games was the first 20 minutes on Saturday against Northampton, who came flying out of the blocks for their caretaker manager Jon Brady. The Brewers weathered that storm and gradually wore their opponents down, as we saw.
The concern is that, a month after that Ipswich game, Burton are now the team with games in hand.
All football managers state the obvious. Hasselbaink states it more articulately than most but the message is the same: he would rather have the points on the board than the games to play.
Right now, if Albion were to win their two games in hand on three of the four teams ahead of them, they would be three points clear of the drop zone. It is a big ‘if,’ however good their form is.
The theory is that having fresh young legs in the squad and plenty of them will pay dividends when the games are coming thick and fast.
With the trip to play Blackpool now rearranged for March 16, Burton now have games on each of the next five Tuesdays, as well, of course, as games on the Saturdays around them. The midweek sequence only eases after they have played Shrewsbury Town on Tuesday, March 23, by which time an early Easter is only a fortnight away.
Long midweek trips to play Charlton Athletic, AFC Wimbledon and Blackpool are in that sequence.
First off, though, a very tough test is on the cards tomorrow against a Sunderland side looking more efficient under Lee Johnson than they did when Burton drew 1-1 at the Stadium of Light earlier in the season, albeit they have lost at home to Plymouth Argyle and away to Shrewsbury Town in the last month.
Charlie Wyke’s four goals in a 4-1 win over Doncaster Rovers on Saturday marks them out as dangerous and they will provide a real test for Burton’s new-look defence. A tougher one than Hull, you might think.
Burton’s relegation rivals hardly have it easy tomorrow, though.
Rochdale are at home to a notably in-form Plymouth and Wigan to the leaders, Lincoln City.
AFC Wimbledon are away to Peterborough United, who are also hitting form, and Northampton will be tested by a trip to MK Dons, who have just won at Hull and will still fancy a tilt at the play-offs.
Bristol Rovers have, on paper, the least testing trip, to play Gillingham, but you just never know.
Then, the first of Burton’s five Tuesdays in a row sees a full programme in League One.
While they have a tricky one, away
Hull’s thrashing of Wigan was another result that did nothing to harm Burton’s hopes of escaping relegation.
to Charlton, it is a night when relegation rivals meet each other, which always means something has to give.
Wigan are away to Bristol Rovers and Rochdale away to Northampton. Swindon could be plunged further into trouble in a visit to take on Lincoln.
There is also a full programme on the Tuesdays of March 9 and March 16 so, assuming Blackpool can get a playable pitch up and running and barring further postponements for any other reasons, we will have to wait at least another month before the Brewers’ games in hand come into play.
It is probably too much to hope that they will already have climbed out of the bottom four before the games in hand are played but, hey, hope was all we had left six weeks ago.