Albion must stop shooting themselves in foot in bid to climb table
GOALS CONCEDED THE BIGGEST ISSUE FOR MAAMRIA TO ADDRESS
THRILLING as Burton Albion’s 3-3 draw with Charlton Athletic on Saturday was, it must have driven manager Dino Maamria mad – and, of course, not for the first time this season.
The biggest reason the Brewers remain in the bottom four is that they will keep finding ways of shooting themselves in the foot.
For all that he said about his side’s character after the game – and fair play, they had a string of injuries, but most teams do – Charlton boss Ben Garner will know that they got away with a point.
Maamria was not wrong to say that Albion dominated. With 25 shots, 10 on target, they did.
Often, the problem this season has been converting chances. On Saturday, they did that. Three goals ought to be enough to win a home game or, for that matter, most games.
Indeed, looking at the season overall, scoring has become less of a problem than it was. Only Bristol Rovers have scored more goals than Burton’s 23 in the bottom half of the table.
The bigger problem still lies at the other end, where, despite the improvement under Maamria, the Brewers have conceded more goals than anyone else in League One.
And the conundrum also remains that they are doing so while individual performances are generally strong. Sam Hughes had a superb game on Saturday, keeping the difficult Jayden Stockley so quiet that Garner had to withdraw him.
You could not say that Deji Oshilaja, alongside him, had a poor game. And Cameron Borthwickjackson’s critics – even though some of them will shake their heads when they read this – had a day on Saturday when they were left short of things to moan about, that is, once they and everyone else had realised it was him at left-back with his new cropped haircut.
Borthwick-jackson’s brilliantlytimed block in stoppage time ensured that Jesurin Rak-sakyi did not hit the cruellest and most painful of winners for Charlton.
And the former Manchester United man was inventive going forward, where he finds astute passes to change the direction of attacks or delivers good crosses.
Tom Hamer was strong and athletic as usual on the other flank and belted in a terrific equalising goal just before half-time.
Small wonder, then, that Maamria was pointing out that you do not look only at the goalkeeper and back four for the reasons you concede goals.
When Charlton had the ball at the back, they wanted to play it short, with keeper Craig Macgillivray rolling it to his defenders.
Burton often stopped them doing that, which was great – except for the fact that on one occasion when Macgillivray was forced to kick it long, he boomed it to the edge of the Burton penalty area, where Oshilaja misjudged the bounce and Charlie Kirk sneaked in to lob the ball over Viljami Sinisalo.
Sinisalo, who has yet to convince when he has been tried instead of Ben Garratt, was embarrassed again for the third Charlton goal, when he hesitated to come off his line and came only precisely far enough to give Rak-sakyi the chance to lob him.
Kevin Poole came to mind at that moment. I have still to see a Burton keeper more decisive than the veteran who enjoyed such a fine end to his career with the club from 2006 to 2013. If Poole decided he had to come out, there was never any going back and it was that positivity that usually got him to the ball first to hoof it into the stand. That’s what he would have done in Sinisalo’s shoes on Saturday before Rak-sakyi got anywhere near the ball.
In fairness to Sinisalo, Poole had more than 20 years more experience by the time he was doing it for Burton.
Add in the fact that the through ball for Rak-sakyi, from Chuks Aneke, was not going to happen until he had won a ball he was not favourite to win against Joe Powell and Tyler Onyango near the dugouts.
While we are pointing fingers at the midfield, Charlton’s first goal was the sort we saw too many of last season and it was rather to be hoped it was one problem that had been ironed out.
When Charlton centre-half Ryan Inniss picked the ball up in his own half he must have wondered what was going on as the space opened up in front of him. He hesitated, almost as if he could not believe his
luck – and then he charged into the space, almost reached the penalty area before measuring a pass Kirk ran on to to score.
You would say that Terry Taylor and Ciaran Gilligan had good games for Burton in midfield on Saturday – but what either or both of them were thinking as Inniss ran through the middle at that moment is anyone’s guess.
Thus, Burton contributed notably to all three Charlton goals. It was 2-2 at half-time and it should have been 2-0. It was 3-2 with 15 minutes left and it should have stayed that way.
It had been a similar story away to Bolton Wanderers, the defence again undone by a goalkeeper’s long punt and one touch from the forward reaching it first for the Trotters’ equaliser.
And it’s as simple as that. Some good performances are going unrewarded because of crazy moments.
Merely to have held the lead against Bolton and to have recorded the win their dominance deserved against Charlton would see the Brewers out of the bottom four right now, before we even look at one or two others that have got away.
Until they can rid themselves of those moments of madness, the hard luck stories in the after-match inquests will remain.