Let’s Try Not to **** this All Away: A Burton Albion Story

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So February was a busy month and if we could pick up 9 points I’d be more than happy.

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So a mixed bag of results and performances. Against Wolves we were the better team and should have won, however Derby battered us and we managed to take all 3 points. The Brighton game kind of pick up were the Derby game had left off with us not being at the races except this time we weren’t so lucky. QPR was a poor match and 0-0 was about right, don’t remember a clean cut chance for either team. Our performance against a strong Norwich team pleased me just a shame we couldn’t get the 3 points we deserved, again our lack of a cutting edge costing us. Blackburn blew us away and our injury time goal put a better look to the score than we deserved. We are clean of relegation at the minute just concerned about our lack of goals and that a poor run could easily pull us into a regelation scrap.
 
March could be a big month when it comes to deciding our fate. We play 2 of the bottom three and wins in those games could all nut cement our place in the Championship for another season. I’d ideally like to pick up 9 points from our 4 games with six of those coming against teams below us and struggling.

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So not the 9 points I was hoping for but unbeaten and at least one of the teams I wanted to beat we did, and this kept Forays bottom. Whilst we aren’t conceding many we aren’t exactly score hatfulls either. I’m beginning to lose patients with Macheda who has had the arm around him and been told I have faith in him but he now hasn’t scored for 13 games, not all starts granted, but he is warned about his form and told in no uncertain terms to pull his socks up.

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So with just over a month of the season left we are 15th​ and looking good for survival, only 1 point needed to reach the target I had set before the season started. With 8 games remaining I hope to be mathematically safe soon and after that everything is a bonus.
So first up are away trips to title chasing Huddersfield and Newcastle. Struggling Villa and play-off hopefuls Ipswich then visit The Pirelli whilst another home game with Leeds is sandwiched between away days in Birmingham and Barnsley. We bring the curtain down on our first ever season in The Championship with Reading at home, and baring a massive collapse on our part and an equally massive upturn in fortunes for one of the bottom clubs we can then start planning for next season.
So a good win against Huddersfield which dents their title challenge is followed by a poor result against Newcastle. We then dispatched Villa to secure our Championship status for another season. It seemed like the boys might be on the beach as we fell to successive 1-0 defeats before a warning about complacency meant 7 points from our final 3 games with wins over Leeds and Reading and a draw at Barnsley.

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So I had done my bit and kept us up finishing 14th​ and closer to the play-offs that relegation, points wise. Just need the board to come up with a decent budget as the squad is going to be decimated with our loanees returning to their parent clubs, all six of them plus a number of players retiring. This and there are a few has beens and never will bes who will not be getting new contracts all of which could leave us pretty thin on the ground

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The end of season awards were announced as follows:
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So we reported back for pre-season and we were definitely looking a bit short of numbers. Myself and the scouting team had spent the summer break looking at players that we might be able to bring in and either improve the team or offer us something a little different, but once I realised that between retirements, loanees returning to their parent clubs and those who either weren’t offered a new contract or didn’t want a new contract that we had lost 20 players from the squads it suddenly might be more about quantity rather than quality. We had a budget of a £1m and a spare 20k per week in wages but I wasn’t sure that’d be enough. I also wanted as many of the players in early so we could have a full pre-season. This could be difficult.
 
So by the time the window slammed shut I had managed to do a bit of business and was reasonably happy with the quality I had managed to bring in. We were a little down on numbers but up on quality in my opinion.View attachment 106200
 
So pre-season we had four games with three against weaker opposition and then one against Championship rivals Derby. We had a mixed bag of results winning 2 drawing one and losing to Derby, which was disappointing especially as we are due to play them first game of the season.View attachment 106195
 
So with fitness gained we head into the season and if I’m honest I’m concerned that we may suffer from 2nd​ season syndrome and I’ve a feeling that this could be more of a struggle than last season and survival will again be the main aim. Things were going well until on the eve of the new season I turn down a bid for Jackson Irvine that is less than his value. I think nothing of it until I’m presented with this on the morning of our first league match.View attachment 106194

Just what I need pretty much the entire first team squad have the hump with me, it going to be a long season!
 
August was going to be a busy month with eight games in both league and cup. This will test my squad depth and we will see pretty quickly how well are new signings get on.
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So a real inconsistent month see us lose 3 in the league and only pick up 7 points whilst progressing to the 3rd​ round of the EFL cup. I would have happily swapped those 2 cup win for one league win as I’m sure points are going to be at a premium, however 7 points from 6 games does set us on the way to our 50 point target. September needs to be more consistent and ideally with a few more points in the bag.
 
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So I got my wish as we were certainly more consistent, consistently losing! We were terrible for most of the month though once high flying Fulham rocked up we seem to find some form and then carry that over to our game against bottom club Charlton meaning that at least we end the month on a high, having at one point dropped into the bottom 3.
 
So October had started well with the win over Charlton and we need to continue this form and try to move away from the bottom 3. With games against QPR, Cardiff, Swansea and Hull picking up points could be difficult, so I’d settle for 5 points from these 4 matches.
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So 1 point from 4 games and we are really struggling again and the 2 wins at the back end of September look like we were papering over the cracks. What’s worse is we weren’t even in the games and deserved to lose all of them and were probably lucky to get a point. We currently sit 1 place above the relegation zone and only on goal difference! Bad times! November only has 3 games all against top half opponents so we could be in for another difficult month.

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A win a draw and a defeat, giving the opposition and the form that we have been in I’ll take it. Huddersfield are pushing for the title whilst Ipswich and Villa are currently pushing for the playoffs so 4 points is probably all we could hope for. It doesn’t move us too far up the table but at least we now have a 2 point gap on the bottom 3. With December bring 8 games and several against teams who are down in the relegation scrap with ourselves a good month could save us and a bad month could really put the pressure on.
 
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So a month that started badly against a Barnsley side who were just above us and really had me worried, however I shouldn’t of worried. The guys started by hammering bottom of the table Millwall and just carried this form right throughout the month, winning both our local derby matches and also despatching top of the table Boro in their own backyard. Draws with Brighton, Bristol and Reading kept the points rolling in and helped ease any relegation fears. This is probably the best that we have played under my stewardship and if we can keep this form up from now to the end of the season, who knows where we could finish.
January brings FA cup and the transfer window. I had agreed to sign a couple of youngsters with a bit of potential who would go into the u23s to start with, and as they were signed on frees it means that we weren’t going to lose anything on them. That was all the business I had planned until on the 2nd​ January Derby bid £5m (including add-ons) for Jackson Irvine. I didn’t want to sell him but he wanted to go was unhappy and wouldn’t sign a new contract and whilst there was still 18 months left on it I was concerned that I would get a offer this high again, so off he went.
The money meant I could renew a few contracts so that I didn’t half to rebuild the team again in the summer and I also started to look to bring in some younger talent who were available at reduced rates that worse case would make some profit when resold and best case would improve the team and be the cornerstones for years to come. Also added a few free transfers to pad out the squad.

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So now to the matches, could we continue our form from December or would we be back to our inconsistent best?
Well in the league we continued were we had left off with 3 wins from 3 however we did go out of the FA cup to Hull on a reply with an injury time winner, gutted but now we could concentrate on the league.

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We now haven’t lost in the league since the 2nd​ December and are starting to look up rather than down the league. We sit 13th​ and only 5 points off a playoff place, which given the form we have been in of late is by no means insurmountable.
 
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Hi I just had a quick skim through this and thought I'd offer some help on the layout if that's ok. When you are uploading a photo from your files choose the image then once it appears on screen it'll be on the left right? Double click on it and it will let you choose the image size and location. Centre is always best for images and depending on the image size itself you can adjust it between medium and large to see what looks best. Also I see on your images with fixtures you have cropped the fixtures you want to show but you have a white backround at the bottom and on the right. What are you using to crop? I use paint to crop all my images and it works perfectly believe it or not.

PS. Feel free to mail me if you need help with it.
 
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So with our form being as it is I’m for the first time linked with a job that isn’t another Championship, Scottish, or bottom 3 Premier League side, and apparently I’m a leading contender.

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Question is do I jump ship to the team I played for?
 
1magine said:
Hi I just had a quick skim through this and thought I'd offer some help on the layout if that's ok. When you are uploading a photo from your files choose the image then once it appears on screen it'll be on the left right? Double click on it and it will let you choose the image size and location. Centre is always best for images and depending on the image size itself you can adjust it between medium and large to see what looks best. Also I see on your images with fixtures you have cropped the fixtures you want to show but you have a white backround at the bottom and on the right. What are you using to crop? I use paint to crop all my images and it works perfectly believe it or not.

PS. Feel free to mail me if you need help with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate. Just been using word to crop my pics will try paint and using the sizing as suggested,as I wasn't happy how the pics were appearing but as I couldn't get them to upload at all at one point I was just happy that they were appearing.
 
Ralph2211 said:
Thanks mate. Just been using word to crop my pics will try paint and using the sizing as suggested,as I wasn't happy how the pics were appearing but as I couldn't get them to upload at all at one point I was just happy that they were appearing.
Click to expand...

No worries!
 
So despite being a leading contender for the Everton job I didn’t even get a interview! Not that I would have left anyway.
So February I hope would just carry on from the previous months and we’d continue to push up the table towards the promised land of the playoffs. So 5 matches against teams who were like ourselves looking to push onwards and upwards but given our form I was confident of getting at least 10 points.

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Oh well that didn’t go to plan. The frustrating thing was that we were the better team in all but the Wolves game were I don’t even know what happened but we got schooled. This has put a major dent in our playoff hopes and we need to buck up our ideas if we want to get even close.
So March brings trips to Cardiff, QPR, and Ipswich whilst the Pirelli will host Swansea. Cardiff are up in the mix for automatic promotion so could prove to be a difficult game whereas the other teams are in and around ourselves, so a few wins could boost our league position no end.

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So another poor month with not even 1 win. I’m beginning to worry that this loss of form could drag us into a relegation scrap, let’s just hope no one below us can find some form, either that or that we can rediscover ours!
Only six games left and I think it would take an absolute disaster for us to go down. I am really concerned that we won’t show any improvement on last season in either points or position, though I do believe we have a much stronger squad and one were half of them aren’t out of contract at the end of the season. I’m kinda ready for this season to be done, and just need to pick up some points and keep moving in the right direction.

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Another inconsistent month and I think the loss of form over the last few months is down to me tinkering with the starting 11 too much and losing both our 1st​ team keepers didn’t help, but I feel that not really knowing my best 11 really hurt us towards the end of the campaign.
 
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