ROWETT: THEY WERE VERY POOR GOALS TO CONCEDE AT ANY LEVEL - News

Brewers boss Gary Rowett was disappointed with his side's second-half performance as they lost 3-1 at The JD Stadium. Burton had gone into the break at 0-0 and Rowett thought two early second-half goals cost them after a positive opening 45 minutes.

"We've come with a game plan and I felt the first-half went really well.

"We got into some really good positions and limited them to relatively few chances.

"I felt as though in the last five minutes of the first-half we just allowed them too get in around the box too easily and we spoke about it at half time.

"We just said we've got to go out and carry it on second-half and if we need to make changes to chase the game a little bit more we could do that.

"Callum McFadzean has got into some great positions and we've had lots of attempts at goal, especially the one that was pulled into Stuart (Beavon), which was probably the best chance.

"But a little bit like Tuesday night, they were very poor goals to concede at any level and it just made the game get away from us at that point.

"I felt that for the last 20/25 minutes we actually rallied quite well, chased the game ok and scored a good goal through Blythy (Jacob Blyth), but it was too little too late."

Rowett believes that defensively the side has moved away from their excellent hard-work over the past 18 months.

"I didn't think we defended well enough all afternoon, particularly in the second-half when it was too easy.

"I spoke to the players in the dressing room and said listen, we've taken the plaudits for 18 months now on the way as a team we've defended and as individuals.

"I've just felt the last two games we've come away from that and I've just said I'm not happy.

"The two games were slightly different as on Tuesday we got done on a little bit of power and aggression where as today we got done by a little bit of movement.

"The goals we conceded weren't wonderful moves, it was just opportunist goals where we haven't done well enough.

"They were very poor goals to concede and that was the disappointing thing about this afternoon, as I felt up to that point that the longer the game went on the more we would frustrate Bury."

Rowett, however felt that today's match was made tougher with three of their key players missing.

"You're always going to miss players like Lucas Akins, Adam McGurk and Alex MacDonald, who are three out of our front four and forced us to play with a midfield five rather than a midfield four.

"But don't get me wrong Bury play with a lot of quality and they're a good side.

"They were favourites this season to get promotion and on today's showing that's probably right.

"They've got quality players, they've brought in a lot of good players from the higher levels and they were very good today.

"I just felt we needed to maintain the discipline we showed first-half and carry on doing that in the second-half. We just didn't do that today and that's probably my disappointment."

Despite back-to-back losses, Rowett feels there's plenty of optimism for his side.

"We've got to make sure we react again positively as before today's game we've worked hard to be two points clear at the top of the table.

"The players are very good players and I've said in there I feel we've got as good as squad as anyone in this division, but we've got to work very hard to put the last two games right."