‘Burton Will Put Out A Strong Team’ – League Cup Opponents Analysed
- Leicester City take on Burton Albion on Wednesday evening
- The Carabao Cup First Round Fixture will be played at Pirelli Stadium
- Enzo Maresca’s men beat Coventry City on the opening day of the 2023/24 season
- There’s optimism around the Burton fanbase, says Colston Crawford
After getting the season up and running at the weekend with a home victory over Coventry City, thanks to a brace from midfielder Kieran Dewsbury-Hall, focus turns to round one of the Carabao Cup for the Foxes.
Burton will host the cup match between the two sides on Wednesday (8pm BST kick-off), and journalist Crawford shared his thoughts on the game from the home team's perspective.
“It’s interesting times at Burton Albion,” he began. “They’ve got Dino Maamria in as manager since Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink left in September last year, and he made a lot of changes in the January window, which he accepted was a gamble, and it paid off.
“It got us off the bottom of the table and led us to a respectable finish in the end. I think we were in the top seven in the form table over the last 20 games. He’s also had to have another re-build in the summer as a lot of the players were on loan.
“Ten new players have come in and had to gel, but interestingly now, 10 or 11 stayed, with another three re-signing so he’s good a good mix of existing players and new players, but it depends how long it takes to become a team.”
Burton ended last season in 15th, with a total of 56 points, and while the reporter admits that the hosts cannot match the Foxes on paper, he does state that a strong line-up will await Enzo Maresca’s side at Pirelli Stadium.
He continued: “Burton don’t have the squad depth that Leicester has – we’re not going to make 11 changes come Wednesday night. It will be as close to the strongest team the manager can put out.
“I think our ambitions are a top-half finish, and with some big clubs like Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town leaving the division through promotion last season, and the ones that have come down not being as strong financially, we've got a decent chance of hitting that target.
“However, these teams are still potentially wealthier than Burton, but the manager is ambitious, and if the first 20 games give us similar results as we got in the last 20 games last season, we’re in for a good ride.”
The Brewers' 2023/24 campaign didn’t get off to the best of starts as they were beaten 2-0 by Blackpool on Saturday afternoon, after a six-minute brace from Shayne Lavery at Bloomfield Road.
“The first half against Blackpool was disappointing, we were cut open too often,” Crawford added. “Sam Hughes, who was the player of the season last year and came through the youth ranks at Leicester, was magnificent last campaign.
“He made a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes at the weekend that led to goals, which I’m sure he’ll be disappointed with, but Blackpool were impressive and so while the second half was better, not too many chances were created, and you’ve got to hope it was because it’s early days in the season."
Despite a loss on the opening day, Burton are hopeful of putting in a good performance against Championship opposition, in a competition which they reached the semi-finals of a few years ago but were ultimately defeated by heavyweights Manchester City.
Striker Cole Stockton, who arrived from Morecombe after a couple of impressive seasons, one of which saw him net 23 goals in 44 appearances, is likely to line up in yellow and black. He will be looking to open his account come Wednesday evening.
“Memories of getting to the Carabao Cup Semi-Finals in 2019 are still relatively fresh,” the Derbyshire Live reporter stated. “We have a reasonable record of knocking Premier League and Championship teams out of these tournaments, especially if those clubs take it lightly and put out too weak of a side.
“There’s usually an assumption that you're facing a League 1 side and therefore it’ll be easy, but that’s not always true. The manager has a lot of credit in the bank with the supporters following last season, and they’ll be optimism around the stadium for sure.
“We signed Cole Stockton, who was a man in demand with a lot of clubs this transfer window, and he had a good spell at Morecambe, and is a good striker at this level. We didn’t see much evidence on Saturday of being able to create many chances for him, but we’re hopeful he’ll have a good season.”