BURTON Albion’s PDP Player Performance Coach Shaun Barker was pleased his side showed character in their 0-0 draw with Harrogate Town.
Despite numerous players missing and an injury to goalkeeper Spencer Tootell, the Young Brewers were still able to pick up a point.
Barker reflected on the positive performance, where he said: “It wasn’t the prettiest of games but sometimes football's like that and you have to learn different ways of getting results, whether it’s a point, whether its three that’s part of football.
"It’s part of the development, it’s part of getting some of these boys to a professional level. Every little game’s a learning curve and I think we’ve learnt a lot from this afternoon.
“Both teams worked hard and both tried to challenge for every ball, tried to win duels, tried to win second balls and maybe both lacked that little bit of quality in key moments of the game and that’s how it goes.
"You’ve got to defend well but also, you’ve got to hope the opposition's attack isn’t on song. There’s nothing wrong with getting a point sometimes, we could have gone for three, but at times maybe we were a little bit too eager to get that goal to win the game.
"Sometimes you have to look at what the objective was before, which was to show character and a real desire to compete. I thought we’ve done that against a really tough side in Harrogate so I’m pleased.”
Due to a number of injuries as well as players being out on loan, the Young Brewers were forced to make changes to the side. Barker discussed this, saying: “We had players playing out of position because we’ve got a squad that’s thread bares at the moment. Charlie Knowles played at right back position, Che Ranger played at left back position, we had Spencer from the 16’s, he obviously got injured so we had Tommy (Miller) who did really well.
"We were kind of adverse which is maybe not ideal with the team that you can select, with players being unavailable, but that showed a chance for the boys showed a bit of character and I thought they did that this afternoon.
“For the first time this season we went into a back four, which isn’t normally our go to, we like a back three and like to have control of the ball and build through the pitch. I just think with the players that we had, we only had two defenders fit in Josh Taroni and Kye Bilton, we didn’t have that third centre half to play a back three.
"If you look at our previous games, we’ve conceded too many goals with certain players missing, it affected the team. We knew Charlie and Che have got the ability to play in a position they’re not used to. We also wanted Conor to drop in to make a bit of a back three fill-in so they could get forwards a little bit more which they did get.”
As the end of the season approaches, Barker discusses the aims he has for his side. He said: “Our objective is to get every single player the best opportunity to continue football, whether that be at Burton Albion or another football club, that’s our objective and reality is, if we wanted to win the league then players wouldn’t be out on loan, players wouldn’t be experiencing first team football.
“I’ve been here five years now and the second half of the season, if you’re doing things right, then players are on loan, your second years are getting experience giving themselves the best chance to get to the next level.
"Our priority isn’t just to necessarily win the league even if we’ve put ourselves in a very good position. Our priority is to get players to the next level and that’s always been the aim of this academy.”