How Brewers shaped week with Saturday off
Dino Maamria says he took time out in training to concentrate on the Burton Albion players who have not been in the team this week. The Brewers’ five-match unbeaten run, while far from perfect, has come with a relatively settled side but Maamria maintains those left out will not necessarily have to wait for someone to be out of form to get a chance to step up – the chance can come their way if they impress in training.
“More or less the same players have been playing in the last few games and they have had more of a recovery day (on Thursday),” said Maamria. “Our focus has been on the players who haven’t been playing, they’ve had a really good session. We wanted to give them a bit of work and a bit of love, as well. I gave them a lot of time.
Ciaran Gilligan, Steve Seddon and Tom Hamer share a joke ahead of the Reading match. (Image: Richard Burley/ Epic Action Imagery)“You don’t want to focus all the time on the ones who are playing – they’re happy anyway, because they are playing and getting results. The squad know how it is with me, I told them from the first day. You’re not going to get into the team on the back of someone else having one bad performance. You get in the team on the back of you training well and performing well. I don’t mind changing a winning team that’s been performing well, if I see certain things in training, with people stepping up.
“They know that the training pitch, day in, day out is a leveller for us. We have to keep a certain standard and I think they know that. We have a good group here. They’re a funny group too, they like to have a laugh, but they’re serious when they need to be. The mood is always the same really.”
Going unbeaten in five after such an awful start to the season obviously brings talk of building momentum, which Maamria acknowledges, but he also returns to his mantra of treating each game separately: “I look at performances, always, I look at how players react in certain moments. It’s right that momentum in football is huge but our performances have been getting better every week,” he said.
“On Tuesday against Wigan was a big test for us. To not start the game well but to stay in it and not concede in those first 15 minutes, then to get right on top of the game and then to concede when we were on top – that raised a question mark for the players – how are we going to react from that? And our reaction was brilliant in the second half.
“They didn’t let it affect them. We didn’t panic, we didn’t start going long all of a sudden and away from our game plan. We kept the ball, we stayed patient, looking for pockets. Wigan will dominate everyone in terms of possession but we had more possession and more passes than them, which is testament to the team.
“We knew how we were going to try to create spaces and hurt them and we stayed consistent to that. What that gives me is a team getting better and we have to keep getting better. We’ll let other people talk about being five unbeaten or whatever, for us the focus is always one game at a time. I can talk as much as I like but the evidence is there. The togetherness of the team is something we pride ourselves in.”
Maamria also noted with no little satisfaction that Wigan adjusted their tactics to try to deal with Burton: “There was a compliment to us from Wigan,” he said. “They went to a back five on Tuesday because of how we play. For a club like Wigan, coming from the Championship, with the quality signings they’ve made and the finances they have behind them, to come to Burton Albion and change how they play is quite something. They’d seen how we work and they knew we could be dangerous.”
All of this he will now have conveyed to the players on Friday before giving them Saturday off with the Cambridge United home game being on Monday night.
“We’ll touch on the Wigan game in the video room and highlight certain things that we did well which we want to carry with us into the game on Monday,” added Maamria. “I think having it on Monday night gives us a breather. I’m giving them Saturday off because it’s unusual for them to have Saturday with their families. But the lads are focused, no doubt about it, and the rest and recovery is important.”
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