Hasselbaink says players ‘mentally ready’ for their break
THE international break is timely for Burton Albion as a hectic schedule catches up with them, more mentally than physically, says Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
The manager also confirmed that they would have asked for Tuesday night’s game against Shrewsbury Town to be postponed as well if there had been any other dates available to play it.
The Brewers lost a second game in a row by 2-1 at the Pirelli Stadium when the Shrews took the points.
Once they fell behind to a freak early goal, Albion struggled to make any progress against a well-drilled Shrews side and fell further behund in the second half.
A brilliant goal by Sean Clare, his first for the club, got them back into the game but the visitors saw it out comfortably.
It means that, following a sevenmatch unbeaten run, Burton will now be seeking a first win in four when they return to League One action away to Accrington Stanley on Good Friday, April 2.
“I think we have mentally really tired people,” said Hasselbaink.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a really good two months but you can see that people are tired, so the international break will do us good.
“If it was up to us, we would also not have played (on Tuesday) but Shrewsbury have played fewer matches than us, they are full, so we could not get another date.
“We knew we were at the bare bones. We took a chance to play with Michael Bostwick (he returned after a groin injury), who had only trained for one day. He came through 95 minutes but it was a risk.
“The break comes at a good time for people to freshen up mentally. I will give them a few days off to be out of here and concentrate on other things in life, to forget about football, then, on Monday, we will go again for the remainder of the season.”
The Brewers seemed to run out of ideas as Shrewsbury defended their early lead efficiently and Hasselbaink blamed their predicament on having conceded the first goal.
“Shrewsbury are a very difficult team to play against. They keep a lot of people behind the ball,” said Hasselbaink.
“They are not a team you want to go one down to because it’s then very hard to break them down with the bank of five at the back.
“They look to counter-attack you and every free kick or throw-in they slow the game down and take their time.
“They take you off your rhythm, so, in a way, you have to score the first goal against them.”
Shrewsbury took the lead when Nathanael Ogbeta’s cross spun high in the air as Ryan Edwards challenged and bounced over both John Brayford and goalkeeper Ben Garratt, striker Curtis Main claiming a touch to send the ball goalwards.
The second goal also came from an Ogbeta cross, which found midfielder Harry Chapman unmarked for a controlled volley from 15 yards.
The second annoyed Hasselbaink more.
“The first goal they scored was a big mistake from us. We needed to clear the ball,” he said.
“But the second goal, for me, was the bigger disappointment. Normally we would have had somebody with that player, who followed the ball in and that is the real disappointment.”
After that, despite Clare’s fine goal, Burton did not threaten to equalise as much as they might have.
The manager has, of necessity, concentrated on firstly making the Brewers more resilient since he arrived in January and says they are not yet clever enough to break deeplying teams down.
“It was very difficult to find space. They keep a lot of people behind the ball and the space is not there,” he said.
“We are not that kind of team, yet, to be able to break teams down with the ball and all of that kind of stuff.
“We haven’t had time to work and train on those kinds of things, attacking patterns. So if people are saying we weren’t creative enough, yes, I agree, we weren’t.
“We didn’t get enough crosses into the box when we went to a 4-4-2. When we did get a cross in, the goalkeeper caught it.”
With the break looming, Hasselbaink also stuck with the nucleus of the team which had gone seven games unbeaten until the last week. He said those outside the team had not made a sufficiently compelling case to break in.
“I wanted to give these players another chance. They have been absolutely brilliant in the weeks before,” said Hasselbaink.
“I don’t think we could rotate too much. The players who were on the bench haven’t twisted my arm to change it, if you understand me.”