Academy beaten in opening game
Burton Albion's Academy travelled to Hartleppol United on Saturday in the Football League Youth Alliance. Academy Head of Coaching Neill Hornby wrote the following report on the 3-2 defeatAfter a 13hr day and travelling over 350 miles the Youth Team were very disappointed to travel back from Hartlepool without a point to show for their efforts, after losing 3-2 in the opening Youth Alliance fixture of the new season.
The game was played in very good conditions and on a decent ’footballing’ surface in Hartlepool, however within 55secs the Brewers were behind. Hartlepool broke down their left, the winger cut in and curled a shot past Charlie Hornby. A very disappointing start, but Burton had several chances through Marcus Dinanga, Ben Fox and Mark Shelton to name a few to equalise and through a mixture of good goalkeeping and poor finishing the score remained 1-0 up until the 35th min. After another individual mistake, Hartlepool capitalised when they shot past the stranded Burton keeper from the edge of the area to make it 2-0, this is how it stayed until half time.
The Brewers then made a re-shuffle and a slight change in formation and immediately had Hartlepool on the back foot and after constant pressure in the 52nd min Mirsa Sejdic reduced the deficit with a clever curling shot. The game was now truly in the balance. Again the Brewers had several chances but failed to capitalise and Hartlepool increased their lead when an in swinging free kick was missed by everybody and again left the Burton keeper stranded.
The players, to their credit, kept going and created many chances, including a missed penalty, but it wasn’t until the 88th min Sam Austin curled a magnificent left footed shot into the goal. With the official adding a minimal amount of added time the young Brewers couldn’t force an equaliser.
Overall not a bad performance but as we all know, no matter how much you prepare you can never legislate for individual errors and ultimately this is what cost the Brewers at least a share of the points. The players know where we need to improve and the staff will be working exceptionally hard over the next week to improve certain defensive areas of our performance.
Our next Youth Alliance fixture is against our local neighbours Notts County, Sat 16 Aug kick off 11am at Welbeck DSFC, Loughborough.