BURTON Albion boss Nigel Clough says his players should go and enjoy playing in front of 30,000 people at Pride Park tonight.
The Albion manager says tonight’s opponents should have nothing to fear on paper as Derby County still have the Championship play-offs in sight.“We’re battling away 5th from bottom in the league and Derby still have play-off aspirations.
“If you look at the gulf in finances, there’s £100M-£150M gone into the club since we left and when you put that into context with what we’re working with here, on paper they’ve got nothing to fear from us.”
It could be the second biggest crowd Burton Albion have played in front of this season, the biggest being 41,337 against Aston Villa at Villa Park.
“Go and enjoy it,” said Clough. “Go and play at Pride Park in front of 30,000 people on a beautiful surface, go and enjoy it.
“Let’s see if we can get a point or three out of the game but the biggest thing is to relax and go and play.”
The 50-year-old was manager of Derby County from 2009-2013 and says going back to Pride Park will bring back some good memories.
He said: “It will bring back great memories of some of the games we had there, especially night games under the lights in the early years.
“It will be strange going back but it will be nice to see some familiar friendly faces as well because the staff that we worked with there were brilliant on and off the pitch so it would be nice to see some of them again.”
Burton Albion recorded a memorable victory against Norwich City on Saturday, and Nigel Clough compared that performance to the one earlier in the season where the Brewers beat Derby 1-0.
“It was similar to Saturday, we played well and I think we deserved it,” said Clough. “We restricted Derby and their abundance of talent to very few chances which was excellent.”
“It is a bit easier to do that here (Pirelli Stadium) on a small pitch and a small ground. It will be a big surface at Pride Park so it will be a bit more of a test.”