Burton Albion (A) Mar 2nd, 3pm

Match Centre 24/25 Match Centre 18/19
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"Couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery"

(Traditional)

Coming to you after a 4-day encounter with “man 'flu” (which the 'flu won hands down) this preview may well be short and sweet … but before that, here’s a confession - when Andy Cook was sent off after 6 minutes against Bradford City, my initial reaction went along the lines of “At least the hoof-ball diet might have to be ditched, and possibly a good thing too”. As an aside, the quotation at the top was echoed by many Bantams supporters referring to their manager - “inept” … “out of his depth” … and he has since resigned.

The Brewers currently occupy 11th place in the League One table, but such is the bunching of clubs it’s perhaps surprising to find that we are only 5 points behind them. Manager Nigel Clough is 3 years into his second spell in charge, but his win percentage of 30.4 is nothing to write home about. On-loan goalkeeper Bradley Collins (from Chelsea) is currently favoured, which consigns 37-year old Stephen Bywater to bench duties. Brewers’ current form:-

26 Jan Bradford City (H) Drew 1-1
2 Feb Oxford United (H) Drew 0-0
9 Feb AFC Wimbledon (A) Won 0-2
16 Feb Shrewsbury Town (A) Drew 1-1
19 Feb Barnsley (A) Drew 0-0
23 Feb Fleetwood Town (H) Lost 0-1

There is a Walsall connection, incidentally - Burton Albion’s “Player of the Year” (voted by their fans) for 2014 was Ian Sharps!

Dean Keates’ selection criteria and choice of tactics in Andy Cook’s first game of his 3 match upheld ban - well, who knows? One certainty is that our squad will have been shown the “bodies on the line” footage posted in the Bradford City match thread, and if we can score early on (rather than conceding) then there’s every chance of harvesting points.

Prediction? Ever the optimist, this game could well end up as a 0-2 away win, which would be very welcome bearing in mind our fixtures for the rest of March… (our winning goal to be credited to Martin O’Connor for his wind-assisted bellowing from the touchline)!!

UTS

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7-0 Walsall. Segregating the Indian and Pakistani fans on different away coaches plan backfires after they’re both hijacked and crashed into each other.

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2-2 with a couple of penalties in the mix

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Big game this, important that we build on Bradford now with either a draw or win. Lose and I fear we’re back to square one. I’m backing them, 1-1.

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Hopefully a win but a draw is much more likely…1-1

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Every game is must win now until we’re mathematically safe.

I have a sneaky feeling about this one. 2-0 to us. Edwards and Jarvis to score.

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1-3 to the mighty Saddlers to propel us back up the table and put this “blip” behind us… Plus I had that score at 35/1 :grin:

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Draw. Which will be enough to keep our heads above water. Not sure it’s enough to get us through the ridiculously tough run coming up though…

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I know you like things to be correct, Welsh so I thought I would point out that it is “■■■■ up in a brewery” :wink:

2-1

Jarvis and Oteh

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Hoping for at least a draw in the A38 Classico.

Last time there the fans were chanting Jon Whitney’s name to get him the manager’s job.

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And you also know me well enough to know that I know the proper quotation - I amended it merely to avoid the piss !!

Keeping things correct, I presume your score forecast was meant to be 1-2 ? :wink::grinning:

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Can’t wait for this. 2-1 Walsall.

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Apologies

I should have written:

2-1 Jarvis (OG), Oteh (OG)

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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As epic as last week was, think this will be a back down to reality game. 1-0 defeat and conceding from a corner.

Hope I’m wrong.

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Burton are no mugs but i am hoping for a draw, with moc running up and down the line like a headless chicken inspiring the team again.

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Will you be there @chunkster?

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Please dont ask him that we’ll now be inundated with home maintenance excuses…:roll_eyes::rofl:

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That’s a shame I was looking forward to meeting the infamous Mr Chunkster.

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I would have been mate, but we have got so much to do in the house, we are having new doors/casings/skirting electric sockets fitted, and we have got to go and sort out what colour paint we need, and san has got to have her diabetic eye check, it would have been nice to stand with our own fans instead of with theirs like last time :laughing:

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Right on queue @RedandWhite

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