Forest V Burton Albion Match Thread

While various no-marks are filling the Forest board with spam, I prefer to look forward to Saturday's visit of Nigel Clough's Burton Albion to the City Ground, the Home Of East Midlands Football.

Clough Jnr has had to seriously restructure his team this season after the sale of Burton's star midfielder Jackson Irvine to Hull City for an undisclosed fee.
Australian International Irvine 24, scored 11 goals in 45 league games last season, playing a key role in helping the Brewers avoid relegation.

A substantial fee that will no doubt contribute to keeping the club in the black next year too. The club have just released last year's accounts for their first season in the Championship making a £1.35 M profit!


Burton had a busy summer transfer window with 12 players leaving and 12 coming in, including defender John Brayford, striker Will Miller and midfielder Jamie Allen, who all joined on deadline day.

Clough has experimented with playing 3 5 2 supposedly this season with mixed results, this has possibly contributed to a couple of heavy home defeats where they have changed formation after going two goals down in the first half.

Clough being the man he is has put a stop to the plummeting goals against stats by playing defensive counter attacking formation away from home.

Burton have managed goalless draws away from home to Norwich, QPR & Bristol City.

Burton lack fire power, with just two players having scored more than one goal. Louis Akins scoring twice from 7 on target shot's and one assist. Lloyd Dyer netting two with a 100 percent on target conversion rate [ watch/mark Lloyd then, these stats include pre season goals].
They have only scored 6 League goals all season, hence a G/D of -17.
These stats tell a false story however because Burton have only scored two goals in a League game twice, that was in a 2-1 win over Cardiff City and 2-1 over Birmingham. Two names to watch are Sordell and Dyer, they both keep popping up on the League game score sheet.

NIGEL Clough is hoping that John Brayford can shake off a hamstring injury in time to face Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on Saturday (3pm)

The defender has been sidelined since picking up the injury against Aston Villa on September 26.

Clough's only other injury worries are a trio of strikers - Joe Mason, Sean Scannell and Will Miller who is still struggling to shake off a hamstring problem.

Mark Warburton can pick from a near fully fit Squad with only Cohen still recovering from his minor opp.

As long as Forest remain tight at the back for the first ten minutes, this game should be a comfortable home win.

Various titbits of information shared here have been gleaned from BBC Sport and the Burton Albion F.C websites respectively.


Live @ http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewLiveArticle/378161
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