Hughes hailed as Burton’s best player in debut defeat

SAM Hughes made an instant impression despite defeat on his Burton Albion debut, writes Jordan Blackwell.

The Leicester City centre-back, loaned to the Brewers last week, went straight into the side that suffered a 2-0 loss to Plymouth in League One at the weekend.

In spite of the result, 23-year-old Hughes was, according to the Derby Telegraph, “by some distance Burton’s best player”, which bodes well for plenty of pitch-time at the Pirelli Stadium.

Early signs suggest that could be in a relegation battle, with the Brewers currently second from bottom in the third tier with four defeats from their five games.

Elsewhere, Mitch Clark made the first appearance of his third loan spell at Port Vale. Having spent the second half of last season there on loan from City, full-back Clark returned to the League Two outfit last week, playing 90 minutes at the weekend as they lost 1-0 at home to Carlisle.

Vale have seven points from their first five games and sit 10th in the standings.

Darnell Johnson featured again for Wigan in League One but could not help them follow up the 1-0 win over Doncaster from his Latics debut last week.

They went down 3-0 to Crewe in their latest outing.

It was not a clean sweep of defeats for City loanees as Kamal Sowah and sister club OH Leuven progressed in the Belgian Cup, beating third-tier Knokke 2-0.

Sowah did not continue his scoring streak though, the Ghanaian scoring four goals in the previous four games, including crucial strikes in wins over Standard Liege, Gent, and ZulteWaregem.

Sowah was the only City loanee in action for Leuven with Daniel Iversen still injured and Josh Eppiah away on international duty with Belgium’s Under-21s.

The international break also stopped Josh Knight from making his debut for Wycombe in the Championship, with George Hirst and Rotherham also given a free weekend.

Rachid Ghezzal will hope to make his first appearance for Besiktas when club football resumes.