AT LAST! BREWERS EARN HOME POINT
Clough relief as horror run ends
NIGEL Clough made no attempt to hide his relief as Burton brought their eight-game losing run at the Pirelli Stadium to an end, but was frustrated to see his side fail to capitalise on a bright start against Norwich.
Sunderland’s win at Nottingham Forest saw the Brewers slip into the bottom three, and Clough had to content himself with a clean sheet and a wellearned point after his side’s desperate run at home.
“Yes, I’m relieved,” Clough admitted. “The longer it goes the harder it gets.
“Having said that, it wasn’t a negative performance in any way. The game should have been over after 20 minutes.”
Clough was reflecting on a dominant opening spell in which Norwich barely entered the Burton half, relying upon an impressive reflex save from Manchester City loanee Angus Gunn to keep Tom Naylor’s point-blank header out after three minutes.
Sean Scannell was found by a penetrating diagonal ball as he broke into the penalty area moments later, but seemed to be caught in two minds as he sidefooted ineffectually across the six-yard box.
And the Canaries had Scannell to thank on 19 minutes when Ben Turner’s effort was blocked on the goalline, the Brewers winger finding himself inadvertently in the path of the centre-back’s shot after Gunn spilled Kyle McFadzean’s header following a corner.
Clough opted to replace Marvin Sordell with John Brayford for the second half, moving Lucas Akins from right-back to centre-forward, yet neither side showed much in the way of attacking quality, with only their respective late substitutes presenting threatening to score.
Alex Pritchard came on for the Canaries with 17 minutes remaining, cutting in menacingly from the left to fire a low effort at Stephen Bywater 11 minutes from time. Joe Sbarra was similarly lively off the bench for the hosts, and Gunn had to produce another good stop to push the substitute’s shot-cum-cross away after he was released down the right by Akins three minutes from time.
And Clough was ultimately satisfied with his players, with seven points from a possible 12 collected over the busy festive period to date.
“Considering it’s our third game in a short space of time, the effort from the players was staggering,” he said. “Nil-nil can be a frustrating scoreline for people, but I wish we’d have drawn the previous eight at home nil-nil instead of losing them!”
Opposite number Daniel Farke acknowledged he had taken a “big risk” in making six changes to his Norwich line-up, and while he felt the draw was a fair result, the Canaries boss was disappointed that his plan to win the game from the bench didn’t quite come to fruition.
“A draw is not too bad a result, and the clean sheet is always good,” Farke reflected. “But to be honest I’m a bit disappointed that we were not able to use one of our situations in the last 30 minutes, because that was the plan.
“It was a bit of a gamble,” Farke said of his heavily rotated side. “The only question – and it was really tricky – was whether to take the risk of making many changes for this game, or in the next home game against Millwall.
“Burton is always a tough place, and they are a little bit annoying with their style, always with long balls.”