Shocking first half is enough to ensure loss for the Brewers
BURTON Albion paid the price for an awful first-half performance as they were beaten 2-1 away to Plymouth Argyle, who went to the top of League One with the victory.
The Brewers trailed 2-0 at the break and it could have been more. They were better in the second half and pulled a goal back but the damage had been done and they could not find an equaliser.
The Brewers also lost a player to a first-half injury yet again, as Kane Hemmings limped off with a calf problem after 21 minutes and, while they are not saying so publicly as yet, the number of muscle injuries being collected at such a relatively early stage of the season must be a concern for the management and coaching team.
The overriding feeling was of frustration – this highly-promising squad are taking a step forward and a step back in equal measures at the moment and playing well and poorly in turns. They did both against Plymouth and the need to sustain the good stuff for whole matches is glaring.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink made two changes from the previous League match, Cameron BorthwickJackson coming in for the injured John Brayford and Kane Hemmings back in the starting line-up at the expense of Joe Powell, while Deji Oshilaja was handed the captain’s armband for the first time.
The Brewers were soon under pressure in the first half and stayed under pressure for most of it.
Plymouth, while playing from the back, were keen to get the ball forward quickly for the runs of Jordan Garrick and Ryan Hardie.
In the eighth minute, former Burton loanee Ryan Broom played a ball in to Hardie who, from the edge of the box chipped a shot that hit the bar.
Tom O’Connor won the ball well in defence and sent Jonny Smith
away down the right but his cross drifted over the Burton forwards and it proved to be a rare bright moment in the half.
As Plymouth cranked up the pressure, they scored after 15 minutes when Ryan Leak’s clearing harder dropped perfectly for Conor Grant, in a central position on the edge of the box, and he buried a low shot to Ben Garratt’s right.
Four minutes later Hemmings went down and was replaced by Daniel Jebbison.
Hardie and Broom combined to give Panutche Camara a 22nd-minute chance which he sliced wide, then Grant crossed from the left to the far post, where Hardie headed straight at Garratt.
Two free kicks chipped into the box by O’Connor were reached by Tom Hamer but he was stretching both times and turned one into the sidenetting, before directing the second straight into the hands of goalkeeper Michael Cooper.
In another rare Burton raid, Smith cut in from the right but, with few options, he shot wildly high and wide.
Hamer’s first long throw did not come until the 42nd minute – and it led to a second goal for Plymouth.
The ball came back to Hamer for a cross, which Cooper caught before booming a 70-yard throw down the right for Hardie to chase.
He reached the ball, held it up and then played it inside for Broom to turn in a shot from 15 yards.
It was a real sucker punch and there might have been another when O’Connor’s poor pass sold Leak short and Hardie was away again before Oshilaja blocked his shot away for a corner.
O’Connor shot wide for Burton with the last act of the half but it had been an awful one for Burton, whose passing had repeatedly let them down, cutting short attacks or putting them into trouble in defence.
Hasselbaink replaced Smith with Harry Chapman for the second half and the Brewers went to three at the back, Oshilaja dropping back between the centre-halves, presum
ably to give the full-backs chance to get forward more.
Hamer’s pass out of play, intended for Chapman, who had not made a move forward, did not bode well for the Brewers and nor did a knock in the back for Borthwick-Jackson, who needed treatment five minutes into the second half.
Broom had a shot deflected for a corner and another blocked by Hamer when a free kick from the right was rolled across the front of the area but, as if from nowhere, the Brewers got one back after 59 minutes after by some distance their most fluent move of the game.
They retained possession for some time, then Conor Shaughnessy burst forward and picked out Akins near the penalty spot. He turned superbly and found the corner of the net to Cooper’s left with a low shot.
The statisticians were delighted with that – the Brewers’ 700th Football League goal, scored by the man who also netted the 650th, the 600th, the 550th and, on his debut, the 300th.
Now it looked a different game and, within a minute, Jebbison burst out of defence on an excellent run and was scythed down by Dan Scarr for the first booking of the game.
Garratt kept Burton in the game in the 63rd minute when a ricochet reached Agard at the far post six yards out, the Burton keeper getting down quickly to beat the shot away.
Another probing ball from Shaughnessy found Akins beating the offside trap on the right and Plymouth got the ball out for a corner when he tried to find Jebbison.
A long ball from Shaughnessy reached Akins at the far post on the left after 84 minutes but what might have been a spectacular goal if he had caught it right became a throw in to Plymouth on the far side when he did not.
Hasselbaink’s last throw was to send on Jacob Maddox for Leak and his first act was a challenge which sent Jebbison running at Plymouth on the right but he shot into the sidenetting from a difficult angle.
It had been stirring from the Brewers from the goal onwards and the 3-5-2 approach had troubled Plymouth but there is going to have to be more than a good half-hour.