U's 0-0 Burton: Un-Special Brew
A second clean sheet in a row for United, but it was hardly a classic at the Abbey on Saturday
What do they always say on the podcast? “Clean sheets are a platform to build on” isn’t it? Well United are certainly laying down the foundations of something right now, but we’re still a few hands short to actually start the building work.
Neil Harris has spoke about getting new faces in, and hoped to have at least one in before the weekend but the fickle and fast-moving nature of League One meant he’s having to wait a bit longer to get a bit more depth into the squad.
That meant it was a familiar U’s line up taking to the Abbey turf, Stevens in goal, Liam Bennett & Danny Andrew out wide with Morro and Ryan B central in defence. As expected Brophy continued his quest to have a shot on target out on the left wing, Kaikai on the right, and Kachunga just behind Lyle Taylor up front. Centre mid duties were handed to Digby and Cousins as you’d expect.
For the opposition we welcomed back Steve Seddon, a left back bought to the Abbey last January to cover the injured Brandon Haunstrup, but who promptly suffered a head injury thirty minutes into his first match. That said - he’s still managed to play more games for United than Haunstrup, who’s been here ten times longer.
On to the game itself then, and in front of a bumper crowd of Academy prospects and their families United served up a game to more or less forget. We had plenty of attacking intent but it was all snuffed out all to easily by the Burton defence, every long shot of ours was blocked by a Burton leg or torso, and our attempts to work it into the box were quickly overcrowded.
One rare moment of danger came in the first half, a clever set piece routine found itself at the feet of Brophy on the edge of the area, but for some reason he’d positioned himself behind the referee so was unable to get his shot away cleanly. My advice? If you’re gonna attempt these things, make sure the target man is someone with a better scoring record than 1 in 110 games….
There’s no point dissecting any lessons to be learned from Saturday - Harris knows as well as we do that players are needed. Some starters need a rest, some need dropping, some we just need a bit of an upgrade on.
We’ll take the point, but it’s a better point for them than it is for us. I’m still confident we’re good enough to stay up with relative comfort - the current bottom three look like they’ll still be there at the end of the season, and they’re likely to be joined by Reading (who fully deserve to go down) or one from the other nine or so teams above them.
Man of the Match: The official gong went to Liam Bennett, but any one of the back four probably deserve it. We’ve been critical of Danny Andrew in the past but he’s actually settling into his position nicely now, so he takes it this week.
Soundtrack of the Match: Judge Dread - Brewers Droop