Brewers boss reflects on Spotland draw
Burton Albion manager Gary Rowett was pleased with his side in their 1-1 draw away at Rochdale on Tuesday night, claiming it to be a good away performance.
The Brewers took the lead through Zeli Ismail’ second goal in three games, before a Rob Lainton error allowed Dale back on terms for the game to finish all square. Rowett, however, wasn’t disheartened by the result.
“Rochdale have the best home record in the division and I felt as though the game plan worked really well. We got our goal and once you get the goal, you lose a bit of ambition sometimes, but we didn’t need to score again.
“We knew the first 45 was just that and we needed to work hard again. When they started to go a bit longer it started to cause us more problems, but it wasn’t a massive issue,” said Rowett.
Whilst Rochdale’s equaliser will be the talking point from the game, Rowett is backing his goalkeeper to bounce back, starting with Friday’s trip to Bristol Rovers.
“The goal was a mistake, Rob felt there was an arm and a bit of pressure on him, but it isn’t the last mistake we’ll ever see from a goalkeeper. It’s disappointing from his point of view as we may have gone on to get all three points,” Rowett said.
The Brewers changed their formation slightly to counter the Rochdale threat, something that Rowett says Albion haven’t had to do a lot this season, but is pleased to extend the club’s unbeaten away run.
“We paid Rochdale a bit of respect tonight by changing our formation, something we’ve not done much this season. In some ways we’re disappointed to only have got a point but if you’d told me our away run would continue so far, I’d have taken it.
“When we go to a team and show some real resilience, there aren’t many better sides than us at doing that and that’s a real skill.
“We had to dig in again and I felt we saw the game out fairly comfortably with one or two half chances.
“ We were always going to rely on fleeting attacks and set pieces, which isn’t a bad thing for an away side. I thought tonight was a really good away performance.”