Burton Albion Football Club

BURTON Albion winger Lucas Akins says he was pleased with the Brewers performance in their 1-0 win over Derby County.

He believed it was close to the kind of performances that saw them get promoted from League One last season.

Akins, Burton’s top scorer last season, put in a man of the match display as his side overcame their closest rivals at the Pirelli Stadium, but refused to take all of the plaudits, praising the work rate of his team mates, saying that they overpowered The Rams.

“We will do that (overpower opposition) a lot, I think that the work ethic is something that we need to carry because teams may have more quality, they may have different attributes that can hurt us but one thing they can never beat us on is hard work and ethic.

“We worked very hard in pre season to get to these levels of fitness and to be able to keep running in the 90th minute so that is one of our strengths and something that we have to keep working hard on, we cannot take our foot off the gas now, we need to firmly carry on with that, overpower teams and keep getting good results.”

1-0 wins have almost been synonymous with Burton over the last two seasons and Akins admitted that the win over Derby felt a lot more like the Burton Albion side that have enjoyed success in recent years.

“Obviously we aren’t renowned for conceding goals but it is a higher level so, potentially, there is more risk of doing that, but tonight we were back at our solid best with people putting their bodies on the line, diving in for balls and getting blocks off and that is what we like here.

“The fans have gotten used to that so to win 1-0 is fantastic, especially off the back of the cup defeat against Liverpool, we were disappointed with that result, so it is good to get back to that and it is something to build on.

“Again we showed tremendous strength from the team, the management staff, everyone because we are all obviously pulling in the same direction. But to get that result tonight, regardless of who it is against, with it being Derby it is extra special for the fans but for us players it is great for us to get back to basics and get three points and a clean sheet.”