[jjamez]

After Saturdays abject performance where Huddersfield couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone their own defence, they play host to well erm, the Brewers of Burton Albion. They sit 22nd in the table on just 4 points having lost 4 of their last 6 games, whilst Town hold onto the last play off place, but there is still a long, long way to go, as we found out last season. Speaking of brewers, whats everyones favourite drink? the widely produced pisswater? Dirty Bitter puddle water from a man called John? A urine sample from the county of Somerset? or maybe you're more a fan of a glass of sludge taken from the peat bogs of Dublin? Exotic you say then look no further than the trampled grape juice from Italy (other countries are available, if you have seen a walk in the clouds you might get where I'm going there) perhaps you like the hand sanitiser from Vladistan, maybe a Caribbean Pirate juice, Wild West Punch or an odd drink using botanicals and anything else you can find to throw in? Am I missing anything?

Anyway, onto our visitors, Burton as said are currently in the relegation places but it is still relatively early days yet, and like Town were rather busy during the summer with 12 players joining. Some notable names being experienced midfielder George Evans who joined from Wrexham, former Barnsley defender Toby Sibbick joined from Wigan and once highly thought of Coventry winger Fabio Tavares, all on free transfers. They delved into non league to sign Tyrese Shade from Eastleigh, he has yet to click at the higher level, but the former Leicester player scored 14 times in the National League last season so there is obviously something that might work out. They also resigned young full back Dylan Williams from Chelsea, he spent last season at the club and is back for more, it hasn't gone how he'd have hoped at Chelsea after he left Derby for the capital, maybe it was more to help the club out financially during their turmoil a few seasons back. Also joining the club were defender Alex Hartridge from Wycombe, midfielder JJ McKiernan from Lincoln, striker Jake Beesley from Blackpool and Kyran Lofthouse from Barnsley. They also signed Seb Revan from Wrexham and Brad Collins from Coventry on loan.



There was quite an upheaval at the club over the summer, with a lot of their more experienced players being moved out to pasture, Icelandic international Jon Dadi Bodvarsson moved back to his homeland, Billy Bodin moved to Swindon, former Derby player Mason Bennett came north to Harrogate and former Bradford midfielder Elliot Watt moved to Scotland to play for Motherwell. The biggest departure came in the form of Rumarn Burrell who moved to QPR for over £1million, the pacy forward scored 11 times last season for the Brewers to help them achieve league survival.

Still managed by former Blackburn boss Gary Bowyer, the Brewers finished 20th last season, surviving by a point at the expense or Crawley Town. They begun last season with former Wimbledon manager Mark Robinson at the helm, having poached him from Chelsea's development set up, they gave him some 23 new players, however, just one win in his 14 games (even that wasn't in the league) saw him relieved of his duties and Tom Hounsell placed in interim charge. He did a month and a bit as interim and was being considered for the job full time, only for the board to go to Bowyer not long after. Hounsell eventually left the club and joined the staff at Wycombe. Bowyer was appointed on the 17th of December with Burton sitting in 23rd, 9 points from survival, initially signing on a deal to the end of the season, he signed a new two year deal this summer. He has had a rather interesting coaching career, starting it at aged 25 after an injury whilst playing for Rotherham curtailed his playing days. He initially started as a youth coach at Ilkeston before moving to Derby. After 6 years there he moved to Blackburn originally as under 18 coach, before being promoted to reserves coach. He had a spell as interim manager at Blackburn when Henning Berg was sacked, he would return to that role when Bergs replacement Michael Appleton was sacked. He was appointed full time and had two years at Blackburn before being sacked. He moved on to Blackpool and got them promoted from League Two at his first attempt before resigning a year later. He would have a few months out before being appointed at Bradford in March 2019, but by February the year after he had been sacked and would return to Derby as Under 23 coach. He wasn't there long as an agreement between Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney saw him become interim coach at Salford, ultimately getting the full time job, he was sacked a season later after missing out on the playoffs. His next move saw him move abroad to Dundee. he led the club on a promotion push and would win the Scottish Championship with Dundee at the end of the season. Bowyer was named as the SPFL Scottish Championship Manager of the Year but departed Dundee as manager, alongside assistant Billy Barr, arriving at Burton over a year later. Last season also marked a change in ownership at the club with long time owner Ben Robinson selling the club to the Nordic Football Group, who remain in charge and surprisingly haven't used the Nordic market to their advantage yet.



In terms of team news that has still to be properly announced, from Towns perspective, my reckoning is that Owen Goodman will still be out suspended following the red card at Barnsley, with the Man City game his final one. Lee Grant has said that Lynden Gooch would be missing the Bradford game and that the Burton game was a possibility but may be coming too soon, Mikel Miller is back training but it feels likely that he may be a few weeks away from making an appearance. Jack Whatmough came off the other week and Grant said he was going to be out for a few weeks so I would hazard a guess that he will be back around October time. Dion Charles got his first goal for the club, albeit for the under 21's, it appears he has fallen behind Bojan in the pecking order for the time being. Having watched little of the Bradford game and bits and pieces of the other games this season, it feels like Castledine would be better suited to having Kasumu playing behind him, sacrificing Kane's potential creativity for Kasumu's energy creates more pockets for Castledine to use, something he does a lot better than Ben Wiles, hopefully we start seeing more of Will Alves from the left as it feels like Roosken is almost the scapegoat at the moment, he seems to be hooked very early when things aren't going to plan, so it might be time to see someone else there from the off, the right side is equally ineffective at times and whilst Harness has ability and quality he seems to be almost trying too hard to influence the game and finally make his mark on the side.

In regards to starting line up, I fully expect to see Nicholls in goal, with Sorensen, Low, a returning Feeney and Roughan in front of him. I'd like Kas to partner Ledson but it will probably be Kane again, wide men as said above, it will be interesting to see if Wiles comes back in having been excluded altogether last weekend, and personally I'd want Alfie May starting up front every week, although looking at how Birmingham used him, they played him all across the the front line so there is that option. I expect Redmond will once again be making an appearance from the bench with the aim of his full debut coming in the cup next week. As for Burton, I'm not really sure what their team news is at this time, if I see anything I will add it in.

It may come as no surprise, but the head to head between the two sides is rather short, we have played each other 4 times, with Burton holding the upper hand as of this moment. Our first meeting came under David Wagner in the promotion season where a late Nahki Wells goal sealed a 1-0 down at the Pirelli Stadium. The return fixture had the same scoreline in favour of the visitors, with Town being schooled in gamesmanship by Nigel Cloughs side. Wagner had rotated some of the players and they failed to get through resolute defending, Dean Whitehead saw red late on with Jackson Irvine scoring in the 90th minute much to the displeasure of the Town fans. Last season it seemed like it was going to be the same story, with Burton defending stoutly and Town lacking the cutting edge, they took the lead fairly early on through Charlie Webster and Town struggled to make any impact, despite having 30 shots on goal and a plethora of corners, finally one paid off and Helik scored what could have been his last goal for the side, the visitors were reduced to 10 men shortly before full time but Town weren't able to make it count. The return fixture came at the back end of the season when John Worthington oversaw the capitulation of a playoff push. Town once again dominated possession, going nowhere with it, but didn't have one shot on target, whilst the hosts made the most of the ball when they had it, Burrell scored twice and Julian Larsson also got on the scoresheet to give the Brewers their biggest win of last season.





In terms of played for both, there doesn't seem to be many, Lucas Akins is one to have played for both, he had 8 years at the Pirelli, making over 300 appearances for the club, he's still contracted to Mansfield but repping the HMS prison team. Kyle Hudlin had a loan spell there but didn't find the back of the net, he now plays over in Vietnam, not sure how that is going for him, Jamal Blackman and Muzzy Carayol were there at the same time as Hudlin, Blackman made for appearances between the sticks for Burton to go with his one for Town, currently unemployed, Carayol had a loan spell here and had two seasons at Burton, he now plays for Peterborough...Sports. Martin Pearson coached and played here and managed Burton, he struggled in that role and is now seemingly doing the same at Notts County, speaking of managed both hello Neil Warnock, he needs no real introduction nor does Darren Moore who played for Burton briefly and managed here also briefly. Oumar Niasse, remember him? he had a short spell at Burton, slightly more fruitful than when here, he actually got on the pitch, thats about it for him, now tearing it up at Macclesfield, speaking of players that failed to achieve much here you can add Scott Malone to that list, he had a loan spell at Burton. Harness began his professional career at Burton, having originally come through the system at Coventry, he made 68 appearances over a 6 year period for the club, he has since played for the likes of Ipswich and Portsmouth before coming to Town.

[jjamez]

Another to have played for both that I missed was Sean scannell, he had a loan there from us. He now plays non league for hornchurch after spells with Grimsby and Bradford

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one jjamez.

This will be the final game of Goodman's ban having already missed PishPosh and the Chickens.

Not looking forward to this. Burton, as you've said, seem to be a bit of a bogey for us. So going to avoid it totally by going to see the Good Life theatre show instead.

Should be more enjoyable than watching Town.

[jjamez]

I've a trophy to pick up at the last game of cricket so I will maybe watch online...

[theo_luddite]

Nice one jjamez. My preference obvs is for tonsil tickling strong flavoured, hoppy pisswater rather than the freezing cold, fizzy, flavourless pisswater favoured by the masses. I also like the odd glass of trampled grape juice too, and not just the Italian sweaty foot variety either - more likely to be a variety in white or red from Northern Spain but the grape smushers from Sarf of the Equator do some quaffable stuff at reasonable prices too. It's too early for wine time Friday just now though.

[jjamez]

It's wine time somewhere in the world theo

[theo_luddite]

It is now

[theo_luddite]

Bowyer has claimed Grant has spent more this season than Bowyer has spent in his life. Er, Blackburn?

[Lord Snooty]

Bit of bants?

Grant has told us in the preview show that he and Bowyer are good friends from their days at Derby, when Lee was a young un and "Gaz" was his coach.

[Lord Snooty]

Well it's half time at the Lamproom Theatre and just switched my phone back on to see Town haven't had a single shot on target.

Looks like we made the right decision coming here.