Jimmy’s first job is to stem the bleeding to save Brewers
WHEN Oxford United banged in their fifth goal on Saturday it took Burton Albion to 50 conceded in League One so far this season.
If things do not improve – and surely they must under Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink – the Brewers are on course to concede 100 goals in the season and they would be the first to do so in the third tier this century.
Yes, there is no sugar-coating it, that is how bad the Brewers have been defensively this season.
They are still one game away from the halfway point (other teams are all at least one more game away).
Southend United, who conceded 85 before last season was curtailed, may well have let in 100 if the remaining games had been played.
Before that, Colchester United narrowly escaped the embarrassment, conceding 99 in 2015-16, while Stockport County let in 95 in 2009-10 and 98 in 2004-05.
Therefore, there was an element of stating the obvious when Hasselbaink conducted his first interview as Burton Albion manager.
“We are leaking too many goals and we need to try and reduce that soon because if we carry on doing that, we aren’t going to win any matches,” said Hasselbaink.
“We need to significantly improve in that area and need to keep it tight to give ourselves a chance of winning matches.”
He can be forgiven for such a statement. It probably needed saying anyway and, as he went on to say, getting the team organised will be his first priority, as will working with most of the players he already has. Wholesale changes mid-season rarely work.
I recall Wigan Athletic bringing in 19 players in January when they were in the Championship. It made the management look like they were working hard but there was not a hope that they would gel in time and, sure enough, down Wigan went.
When he looks more closely at all the statistics, the timing of the goals against Burton will alarm Hasselbaink, too. They suggest a team being caught cold far too often at the start of games and one that struggles to last the pace to the end of games.
Four times in the first four matches of this season, Burton conceded inside the last 10 minutes.
It cost them an outright win in the Carabao Cup against Accrington Stanley and a draw in the same competition against Aston Villa, who scored two late goals.
In a small mercy, it did not cost them in the League match against Accrington, because they found a late winner of their own, but the fact remained that they could not see out what ought to have been a 1-0 win.
Next came games against Swindon Town and Portsmouth in which they conceded inside the first 10 minutes, then a run of four out of five matches in which the opposition scored within seven minutes of the start of the second half.
Portsmouth and Plymouth Argyle scored two minutes after the break, Peterborough United three minutes after, Rochdale four and Bristol Rovers seven.
Soon, it was back to late goals, from Shrewsbury Town, Hull City, Northampton Town, Sunderland and Crewe Alexandra – five out of six League matches in which the opposition scored inside the last 10 minutes.
By this time, it was happening too often to be a coincidence, too often
Getting the team organised will be his first priority, as will working with most of the players he already has.
to shrug and say that it will balance out over the season.
Since then, Ipswich Town, Lincoln City and Wigan Atletic have each scored within the last 10 minutes, two of them with winning goals.
That spell has been coupled with the return of the early goals problem, Ipswich, Doncaster Rovers, Lincon (twice) and Oxford all scoring with less than 10 minutes played.
Excluding the EFL Trophy, that is 11 goals against with less than 10 to play; 14 against within 10 minutes of the start of a half.
Things have been getting worse, not better. Early in the season, largely, Jake Buxton was able to point out that Burton were not being played off the park. They were losing by the odd goal.
By the time Buxton lost the job, he could not make the claim. While he was not in charge for the Oxford defeat, it was the second 5-1 in three games and 14 goals had been conceded in three games.
In the current five-game losing streak, 19 goals have been conceded. Six teams in the division have con
ceded fewer than that in the whole season to date. Two more have also conceded 19 so far.
Naturally, the Brewers’ goal difference is comfortably the worst in the division at minus 22.
It is scant consolation that Burton are scoring a decent number of goals. Their tally of 28 is better than anyone else’s in
the bottom nine and had Oxford not helped themselves to five on
Saturday, only the
top six would
have scored
more goals than
Burton.
Small wonder
striker Kane
Hemmings has
been showing his
frustration. His end of
the bargain is in decent order. No way should a team score three at home, as the Brewers did against Wigan, and lose. They let 1-0 leads slip late in three successive games in December. That is a massive sin in Hasselbaink’s eyes. He was the Dutch master of the 1-0 win in his first spell at the Pirelli Stadium. And when it was not 1-0, it was almost as often 2-1 to the Brewers. Is it too much to hope that he can somehow bring those days back for half a season at least?
That is a massive sin in Hasselbaink’s eyes. He was the Dutch master of the 1-0 win in his first spell at the Pirelli.