Championship: Derby County- Burton Albion
I have nothing but admiration for Albion and home wins over Wolverhampton Wanderers and Norwich City have given them a lifeline and four point lead over the drop zone and a chance of survival. Prior to those wins, I previewed their home game with Fulham and spoke about the gulf in terms of budget and resources that the Brewers were dealing with ................
I previewed Albion's trip to Cardiff 11 days and my notes included ...........
Albion are in big trouble now, battling and organisational qualities can take you far over 10-12 games , but a lack of quality in the squad will always find you out over 46 matches and I have spoken often about the size of the budget at Burton, which is more in line with a mid table League 1 team at best and that they were playing non league football in 2009 and at L2 level as recently as 20 months ago. That is a very long way to come in a short time and it now feels like things have caught up with them and it is time to pay the price ! They were one of the three weakest teams I have seen in the Championship at Griffin Park in the last three seasons and way below the quality that Cardiff showed there on Boxing Day and the two played at GP within 16 days of each other.
City are only five points better off, but I rank them as top 10-12 quality and simply cannot see how Burton can stay out of the bottom 3, they do have three teams below them at present, but both Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers look stronger and those above have money and a points advantage.
They lost that narrowly (City are now up to 15th BTW) and then went to West London and got a shock and hugely valuable win over QPR, which has kept them out of the bottom three, but they remain in trouble and it would be as good a head coaching performance as any in the Football League, were Nigel Clough (pictured) able to keep his team in the Championship. He showed fantastic loyalty to them by turning down an approach from Nottingham Forest where he has big ties and it would be great to see that rewarded, but I have my doubts and like to go with what I have seen with my own eyes. As poor as Burton were at GP, Fulham put in just about the best team performance I have seen this season and are hugely improved and that pains me to say ! They are in 11th place, but have at least one game in hand on the five teams immediately above them and are a better team IMO than five of the top 10, a win tonight would take them to within three of the playoffs and I doubt they will arrive at the Pirelli with anything else in mind. They are 5-5-3 on the road this season, two losses came to top 3 teams and they were unlucky in the defeat at Reading where they were the better team and missed a game tying penalty in the 90th minute.
Albion are without a win next time out after their six wins, losing the last three and also their last four home starts. To give some idea of the gulf in the two squads, Burton signed Lasse Vigen Christensen and Cauley Woodrow on loan from Fulham last week. Both played against Rangers at the weekend, but had made just one start between them for Fulham this season and they are both ineligible to face their parent club this evening.
Fulham won that 2-0 and in truth it should have been 5-0, but that makes those two subsequent wins and against teams who have spent millions, all the more noteworthy. However, sandwiched inbetween was a 4-1 loss at Brighton and they still have that poor record after a win (see above) and are now seven without a win, next time out, following a victory. They make the very difficult, albeit short trip (20km) to Derby today to meet a side who have to win to keep their playoff hopes alive and who are much better than 11th place indicates and have to do so, with one eye on their next game, which is a home start against Blackburn Rovers who are looking to force their way out of the drop zone (5 points behind Albion with a game in hand). Problem for Burton is that Rovers do not have a midweek fixture and that game is on Friday night and I wonder how hard they will chase the game tonight should they fall behind and that doesn't have to be a conscious decision.
Massive game for the Rams, Albions biggest game of the week, despite the local nature of the fixture and Nigel Clough's history with County, is in 72 hours time. Burton have lost all four games away to top 7 teams by 2+ goals and if Derby have post season ambitions and of course they do, they can (and have to) follow suit.
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Good Luck.
