City were well beaten yesterday on the road against relegation candidates Burton Albion by three goals.
Mark Kennedy made two changes to the side that just came up short against Southampton on Tuesday night with Tom Hopper and Jack Diamond returning to the starting eleven in place of Ben House and Danny Mandroiu, with the latter being confirmed as a casualty through injury and the former being ill during the week. We stayed with the back five system, something we have come to expect over recent weeks with the wing-backs looking to exploit the opposition and overload the wings.
I personally couldn’t make it today but it was brilliant to see over 1,000 Imps on the road today supporting the lads, but as much as I would have loved to have been part of it, I had to settle for an iFollow match pass. In some ways, for me, it is better to watch it from home as I get a better view of the game than you would in the terraces surrounded by bias. And from that, the big thing I noticed straight away was the inability to win second balls in the first five minutes. We were second best to everything all over the pitch, and when we did win the ball back we gave it straight back to a yellow shirt, we looked like the team struggling and destined for relegation, not Burton and that was a worry.
We were punished for coming out of the blocks slowly too, and we found ourselves a goal down within six minutes. City had set up for a long throw, lazily not noticing the short option. The throw-in taker Tom Hamer played a one-two and put in a clever ball into the City penalty area, which was not dealt with and headed home by Brewers’ central defender Sam Hughes. The goal failed to wake up the sluggish City side and we soon found ourselves with another goal conceded. The Burton right-hand side was causing City all sorts of problems as we struggled to contain Hamer, Terry Taylor and Jonny Smith. All three combined and the latter had all the time in the world to set himself up for an effort and his long-range strike was perfect and curled into the top left corner of Carl Rushworth’s net.
The second goal was a real cause of my anger, and the reasons were even more evident from watching the game on a stream. Jonny Smith is a real threat, and he was allowed to drive to the edge of the area from the right-hand side and take on an effort with so much space. Sean Roughan covered an overlapping option, but the Burton man has gone past Diamond and Max Sanders with ease, and the only real attempt to block the ball came from a half-hearted effort from Joe Walsh, who should have done more quickly to close down the effort.
Within fifteen minutes we found ourselves down by two goals, with all the players, staff and fans starstruck at what was happening. The reality was that we were not playing well enough at all and it wasn’t the fault of Kennedy or the coaching staff, it was the basic principles of football and that was on the players. We were late to everything, we didn’t press the ball at all and we were constantly pumping the ball upfield with no purpose.
After the early double blow from Burton, we started to get more control on the game and we started to move the ball around a bit more. However, in a small period of possession for City, it was evident that we were struggling to create chances and we didn’t cause any problems for Burton at all. Not starting House was a poor decision for me, I understand starting Hopper was crucial for the game, with Burton using long throws to hurt us and his aerial dominance to help us deal with them but we could have switched up the system to include both players and keep the five system. We could have gone with a 3-4-1-2 system, with one of Diamond or Vernam behind House and Hopper, rather than dropping one of our main goal threats in House.
Despite a slight improvement in possession, Burton soon wrapped the game up. After another dangerous set-piece delivery, Paudie O’Connor pulled down a Burton man by his shirt and the referee pointed to the spot without hesitation. Victor Adeboyejo tucked the penalty away, with an exceptional finish that no goalkeeper could have stopped. As the time hit half past three, the game was over and there was no way back for a City side, which doesn’t score normally more than two in a game.
Mark changed the system about ten minutes before half-time going to a 4-4-2, with House replacing Walsh. Some may say the change had come too late, and they were probably right, but managers rarely change things before half-time and Mark was probably hoping that we’d stay at 2-0 until half-time and he could’ve told the lads what tactical changes needed to be made and make the substitutes there and then. The thing I did like about the change was Mark’s ability to change up the team and not be afraid to change the system like a previous manager we had.
We made another change at half-time. Lasse Sorensen replaced Sanders to help us get more control. Again, I’m going to refer to opinions I have seen on social media and some were saying that it was a negative change and not going to help us back into the game. Whilst to some degree I agree with it not being an inspirational change but I thought Lasse was excellent when he came on and helped solve the main issue we had in the first half, which was second balls and he turned the midfield battle in our favour for some of the half.
We looked better in the second period and we showed a reaction to the first half. We had a few chances but nothing we created really threatened the Burton goal with a proper clear-cut chance. On a positive note, Charles Vernam looked good yet again and I didn’t agree when he was taken off, one criticism I have of Mark is his eagerness to keep Diamond on the pitch all the time. Obviously, Jack is our best attacker and a massive game-changer but yesterday he was poor. He failed to really help Roughan at the back and he was inefficient in attack, I know the game was done, but if we had kept Vernam on the pitch with Bishop, we may have created a bit more.
I’m not too annoyed as I’ve learnt this season that we are inconsistent and once Mark has had a few transfer windows and more time with the group, we will get better and start being consistent. We are in a good position at the moment, as all the sides around us dropped points too. We aren’t going to play like that every week and with our form, you’d be more confident going into the next two games than you would have been today. While I’m annoyed with how we played, I’m not brimming with anger and I trust we’ll come again and put this right.