Run of five without a win must be kept in perspective
OTHER CLUBS WITH SAME RECORD AS ALBION SO FAR ARE HAPPY WITH RESULTS
JIMMY Floyd Hasselbaink will be bending his mind this week to address the biggest blip in his time as Burton Albion manager – a run of five League One games without a win.
It is true and fair comment that these are early days in the season, that the Brewers have had a string of injuries and that it takes time to settle in a large number of new signings.
Much as Hasselbaink points to these mitigating factors, privately he will be irked that his team have not, yet, built on the springboard of starting the season with three wins.
Another point is that the sequencing of results affects how fans view the overall picture.
Won three, drawn three, lost two is a perfectly respectable start.
If it was not for the fact that the drawn three, lost two part represent the last five of those, supporters would be happier with it than they are.
Three other clubs with the same record at this stage are happy with their lot.
Bolton Wanderers fans think they are going to win the division. Their 3-3-2 record just happens to include a scintillating 5-2 win away to Ipswich Town. They have also lost to Cambridge United and Rotherham United.
Cheltenham, freshly promoted, are quite happy with their record, with wins over Ipswich, Charlton Athletic and Oxford United. They appear to be settling well to the task of establishing themselves in League One.
Also on 3-3-2 are Wimbledon, settling in to their new ground and rattling in 15 goals so far with enthusiastic noises coming out of Plough Lane after several seasons of struggle.
By contrast, some Burton fans are already starting to grumble – for them the Hasselbaink honeymoon is over already. That is the consequence of it being a month since the win over Sunderland, for all that only five teams, the current top five, have lost fewer games than the Brewers. Hasselbaink does have a decent record, for Burton at least, of arresting blips. In his first season, as the Brewers charged towards the League Two title, the blip was all of two games. They were unbeaten in 13 matches when they travelled to play Accrington Stanley on a Tuesday in February and a typically attritional game up there was settled by a first League goal by Josh Windass.
If the Brewers were flat that day, they were flatter still at home to Newport County four days later and fell to another 1-0 defeat, the only home defeat under Hasselbaink that season.
The response from Burton was not to lose again for the rest of the season. Florent Cuvelier’s only goal for the club, in his only appearance, gave them a late win away to Hartlepool United the following week and was just what was needed.
Accrington were put in their place the following week, 3-0, and the rest of the season yielded eight wins and three draws.
Last season, when Hasselbaink returned, there was a run of four games without a win, which followed a run of six straight wins.
Burton took the lead away to Blackpool in an outstanding first half but were pressed back in the second and happy to escape with a 1-1 draw.
MK Dons then turned in one of their best performances of the season to win 2-1 at the Pirelli Stadium and current Brewer Harry Chapman helped sink Albion with a spectacular goal as Shrewsbury Town won 2-1 at the Pirelli three days later.
The last thing they needed after that, perhaps, was another trip to
Accrington but while the goalless draw at the Wham Stadium extended the winless run to four, the defensive solidity was back.
Swindon Town were beaten 2-1 next time out and all was well again in the march towards survival.
Hasselbaink also suffered a fivegame run without a win while manager of QPR, one that painfully included a 6-0 home drubbing by Newcastle United.
And when he managed Northampton Town, there were runs of eight games and then nine games without wins, the second of which cost him his job.
The current run may be a little frustrating but what happened at Northampton seems of a different world by comparison.
I think we can expect Hasselbaink to sort this particular blip out sooner rather than later.
For some Burton fans, the Hasselbaink honeymoon is over after five games without a win