NIGEL Clough says the Brewers are overdue a bit of luck against Ipswich Town and hopes his team can get a break at Portman Road on Saturday.
This will be the sixth time the clubs have met and Albion are yet to record a victory having lost four and drawn one of the previous five meetings.
But Clough doesn’t believe those results do Albion justice and the 1-0 home defeat at the Pirelli Stadium on August 3 still rankles - with Ipswich taking a game where Albion had 58 per cent of possession despite being reduced to ten men and created the best chances. The only goal of the game was a cruel deflection that gave Ipswich the three points.
Clough said: “I think we have a point to prove after the first day of the season when we were beaten very unfairly after a deflection.
“They have been a bit of a bogey side as we have played so well against them and haven’t had the results. If you think about the games in the Championship and here in August, we are due a bit of luck against them.
“We are looking forward to the game. It’s always an enjoyable experience going to Portman Road. It’s one of those football clubs who have been at the top level for so long and have the history and the stadium and it should be an enjoyable experience for our players.
“We thought at the start of the season that they might run away with it but they have been pegged back a little, which can happen in a long hard season.
“The weight of expectation at clubs like Ipswich and Sunderland is very high and if things are not going their way it weighs quite heavily. But once you turn it around it can give you momentum, like Sunderland at the moment and then it becomes a massive advantage when you have 20,000 behind you. Ipswich certainly have time to pick it up again.”
The Brewers now face back-to-back away games at Ipswich and then struggling Southend but Clough is not fazed by playing away.
“Home or away doesn’t make too much difference to us. It’s more how we go about it. If we do our jobs defensively well enough we can beat anybody. I don’t worry as much about us going forward but defensively it’s about getting that right mentality which we have shown at times but not all the time.
“We are going to two tough places, one towards the top of the league and one towards the bottom. The pressure will be more on Ipswich on Saturday as they probably need the three points more than us.”
The Brewers will have Oliver Sarkic back from suspension and will hope that Jake Buxton, Stephen Quinn, Colin Daniel and John-Joe O’Toole can recover from niggling injuries in time for the trip.
Clough said: “Jake got another whack at Rotherham on exactly the same spot which is what is causing him the problem. Stephen and J-J it’s groin injuries and Colin it’s his back. You get these sort of things, especially this time of year, after a hard six months.”