CAPTAIN Jake Buxton is pleased to be staying with Burton Albion and is determined to make an impact on the pitch and in the dressing room, as the Brewers look to make a good start to the 2018/19 campaign.
The defender, who made 32 Championship appearances last season, has signed a new one-year deal with the club, 10 years after he first signed for the Brewers and helped us gain promotion to the Football League.
Buxton is keen to ensure that his impact is not limited to just the pitch, as he hopes to continue helping in the dressing room as captain.
He said: “I think that it comes naturally. As I said at the end of season awards, regardless of whether I am the captain or not, I have an opinion on the game, how I think my teammates should play and what we expect from them on and off the field, and I try to get that across to the players, whether I am playing or not.
“I try to help the management and the staff in dressing room before the games, I enjoy that side of the game as well."
Buxton is the third player to sign a new deal with the club this summer, with Harry Campbell and Damien McCrory also agreeing to stay with the Brewers. The skipper says that keeping as much of last season’s squad together as possible is important if Albion are to make a good start to the upcoming campaign.
He said: “I think it is imperative that we keep the squad together because we want to hit the ground running in League One and it is important that we have a good start.
"If you change eight or nine bodies in the squad over the summer, you need a bit of time to gel and we probably haven’t got that, we need to hit the ground running and more so by keeping the players who came so close to keeping us in the Championship last season.
“After relegation, we have to show the supporters and the other clubs that nothing is lingering from the season before. We have to make sure that we have a good pre-season, the lads come back in good shape nowadays anyway, so are fresh and ready to go and put behind us what was a difficult season in certain parts, but we did finish it quite strongly.
"We won at home (against Derby County and Bolton Wanderers), which had been a bit of a burden for us throughout the season, and we put in some good performances in during the last seven or eight games, we have got to carry that on and make sure we have a good start.
“It is not going to be easy, no division is easy, but we are going to be as competitive as ever. We are going to be aggressive and will scrap for every point that we can get.
"We also think that we can play, and it is important that we got those couple of results at home at the back-end of last season, which is going to put us in good stead for the new season, because we need to have good home form if we are going to challenge to get back into the Championship.”