One thing after another went wrong up front for the Brewers through season
INJURIES AND DEPARTURES AS BURTON FELL SHORT
With Burton Albion’s 2021-22 season passing into memory, we now take a look at the squad who represented the club during a frustrating campaign which nonetheless included some highlights and in which some players enhanced their reputations, others less so. Finishing today with the strikers.
SOMETHING has plainly not gone right when the season’s top scorer has only nine goals, eight of which were in the major competitions and that player was only around for five months.
A big job is needed in the summer when contracts expire and there are only two senior strikers on the books, who, for different reasons, managed only 13 starts between them in the season just ended.
That is the stark situation facing Burton Albion manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
If it could go wrong, largely, it did for the Brewers up front in 2021-22.
It had not looked so bad going into the season, with the experience of Lucas Akins and Kane Hemmings added to by the goalscoring record of Louis Moult and the enticing prospect of securing teenage star in the making Daniel Jebbison on loan.
Here is a run-down of who was involved and how they did.
KANE HEMMINGS
Hemmings’ campaign did not get off to the best start when he was injured in pre-season and did not appear until the seventh match. Once Daniel Jebbison arrived on loan, the two tended to alternate in the line-up. Hemmings’ first four goals were typical opportunist strikes and his fifth, an untypically spectacular volley in the 4-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra on New Year’s Day, might have been voted goal of the season if he had still been around.
However, it was his last, with Tranmere Rovers apparently putting more money and a longer deal on the table than the striker was likely to be offered when his Burton contract ended this summer. His Albion career ended at 20 goals from 63 games.
LUCAS AKINS
A week after Hemmings departed for Tranmere came the halfexpected news that Akins, by some way the longest-serving player on the books, was leaving to be reunited with former manager Nigel Clough with Mansfield Town. He had, we were told, made no
secret of his desire to move on but what a servant he had been, in his eighth season, a player who had gone from League Two to the Championship and back to League One with the club, scoring 71 goals in 346 games.
Akins’ best years were probably behind him but his and Hemmings’ departures left big shoes to fill up front.
DANIEL JEBBISON
The 18-year-old Sheffield United striker lived up to his billing when he arrived on loan at the end of the summer window, his first goal for the club a peach in a home win over Portsmouth.
He missed plenty of chances too but was always back for another and reached nine goals, showing a great capacity for work and not being afraid to mix it with bigger defenders.
His personality was important, too, on and off the pitch, and, as Hasselbaink has acknowledged, it knocked the stuffing out of the Brewers when the Blades recalled him on the last day of the January window. It was a big ask for a teenager to be such a focal point for a team, though.
LOUIS MOULT
Moult’s arrival was speculated
about and happened. His goalscoring record for Wrexham, Motherwell and, briefly, Preston North End, was good but injury had held his career back latterly and he had not played for a season once returning to fitness with Preston. Now, the Stoke-born striker wanted to be nearer to family. It looked a bit of a coup.
But the unfortunate Moult sustained a freak – and serious – ankle injury in the pre-season game against Leicester City and could not play until January. Once he did, he struggled to get up to speed in 10 appearances, only three of which were starts, although he contributed a good finish in the 3-2 win over Fleetwood Town.
If Moult, 30 at the weekend, can hit the ground running in the second year of his contract, he could yet prove a good signing but time will tell.
There are only two senior strikers on the books who, for different reasons, managed only 13 starts between them
OMARI PATRICK
Included here because, although signed as a winger, Patrick only played as a striker in five League starts, asked to cover after the injuries to Hemmings and Moult and before Jebbison’s arrival.
He showed plenty of willingness but had no goals to show for it and it was a shame that such a cheery, lively character dropped out of the
picture, having his contract cancelled and returning to Carlisle United in January.
AARON AMADI-HOLLOWAY
Signed as a stop-gap because of the injuries, Amadi-holloway arrived with the grand total of 18 goals to his name in a decade-long senior career.
He did not look like adding to them for the Brewers in eight appearances in League One and the FA Cup and it was academic when he helped himself to a hat-trick in the 5-0 Papa John’s Trophy win away to Wycombe Wanderers, a dead rubber in the group games for both teams.
He was loaned to Barrow and subsequently released.
GASSAN AHADME
Arriving at the end of the transfer window on a permanent deal from Norwich City, the 21-year-old Moroccan-born striker has divided opinion amongst supporters.
He has shown a willingness to work hard, has quick feet and has scored two nice poacher’s finishes, plus a dinked penalty he was lucky to get away with, which annoyed the manager. He has also drifted in and out of games and has been too easily coerced into conceding free kicks by wily defenders.
But Hasselbaink and assistant Dino Maamria think they have a potential diamond to bring through and it is he and Moult who are the current senior strikers on the books.
OUMAR NIASSE
The former £13m Everton striker was without a club after a long spell out injured when Hasselbaink offered him the chance to get back into the game with a short term deal until the end of the season.
There were times when his obvious class showed, not least when he scored twice in the 3-2 win against Fleetwood Town, but he also had a tendency to disregard the manager’s instructions during games and missed a small stack of one-on-ones which might have propelled him towards double figures.
He was not offered a new deal at the end of the season.
TOM HEWLETT
The club have persevered with Hewlett, a regular scorer for the academy side who was first offered a professional contract in the summer of 2020.
A broken leg wiped out his 202021 season and he has had setbacks coming back but finished the season out on loan and with a new deal offered.
Might he yet have a part to play if he stays and impresses in pre-season?