Carabao nights have shown what Albion can really do
BURTON Albion’s inconsistency in League One this season has made it hard to predict how they will fare from week to week but their brilliant run in the Carabao Cup has shown exactly what this Brewers team is capable of.
Clough’s side are into the quarterfinals for the first time in their history.
Championship club Middlesbrough stand in the way of what would be a massive two-legged semi-final against a Premier League outfit.
Shrewsbury Town, Aston Villa, Burnley and Nottingham Forest have already fallen by the wayside, each dispatched by a
Brewers performance that mixed resilience with dynamism in attack.
Burton trailed in their first round win over Shrewsbury and the win against Burnley in round three.
They have won only once in the League after conceding the first goal but, in the Carabao Cup, they have not allowed games to slip away from them at that stage.
There was also Liam Boyce’s missed penalty in the first-half of the thrilling 3-2 victory against Forest. That could have rattled team and player.
Instead, Boyce turned in one of his most influential performances in an Albion shirt, having a hand in all three of Burton’s goals in a brilliant cup clash.
Even when they won 1-0 against Villa, they had to overcome first-half injuries to John Brayford and Stephen Bywater and substitute goalkeeper Harry Campbell made a stoppage-time penalty save to prevent the game going to penalties.
Being in the cup seems to have inspired the grit and composure in Burton that has too often been lacking at weekends.
Their attacking approach, though, has never wavered. They have met higher-league opponents with intensity and ambition and it has proved enough so far.
A visit to Middlesbrough could be the hardest test yet.
There is no doubt Burton have thrived on home soil in the past three rounds.
A trip to the Riverside, only three days after Saturday’s draining defeat in the wind and rain of Fleetwood Town, is a different proposition. They will also have to be at their clinical best, because Tony Pulis’ Boro are notoriously stingy at the back.
A paltry 16 goals have gone in against them in 22 Championship matches, the lowest in the division.
That miserly nature has not translated to the cup, in which they have shipped six goals, but it has also allowed them to free themselves in attack and the Brewers will come under pressure.
Just as with other matches in the competition so far, Albion’s primary focus since the full-time whistle at Fleetwood will have been on themselves and how they can hurt Boro.
On three occasions this season, the disappointment of League defeats – against Gillingham, Oxford United and Peterborough United – has been offset by triumph in the cup next time out.
It has been the success story of an otherwise topsy-turvy campaign so far. Is there another chapter to be written tonight. Joshua Murray Scott Fraser watches as his shot deflects high over Nottingham Forest keeper Luke Steele to make it 1-0 in the last round of the Carabao Cup.
Each opponent has been dispatched by a performance mixing resilience with dynamism.