Will Burton do to Sutton what they did to Jackson?

By Nathan Jackson
September 26 2010

Burton Albion make the relatively short trip to Sincil Bank on Tuesday night in a game that marks the first anniversary of Sutton's appointment and it's a game whereas only a victory would appease some of the pressure on Sutton, but Burton showed last season that they are not sympathetic to a manager under pressure at Sincil Bank.

Logo : Introduction

September 28^th 2010 will mark the first year anniversary of when Chris Sutton was announced as the manager of Lincoln City Football Club. I remember the announcement and the feeling dejection after hoping it would be either Gary Brabin or John Pemberton, Chris Sutton’s name hadn’t even been mentioned until earlier that morning in the Lincolnshire Echo. However, I was prepared to give him a chance and to be fair to him, we did win the first two games he had in charge, although we were second best for most of both games.

As more and more of Sutton’s players came in, the wins quickly became fewer and far between and the Chris Sutton, Aston Villa only victories that the Imps achieved in between October 10^th and December 26^th were in the FA Cup against teams from two divisions below us. The writing was on the wall early for Sutton as to go ten weeks without a win in your first three months of management simply isn’t good enough. Even then we were realistically fortunate to record the win on December 26^th because, although the Imps did dominate, had Jack Lester not fluffed his penalty then it would have made it 2-2.

Had it not been for Sutton’s use of the loan market then City would probably have gone down last season. If on December 31st 2019 some people will look back on our best XI over the decade and that almost certainly include Davide Somma and Chris Herd. Those two were arguably our best two players last season and as I say, to be fair to Sutton the loanee market is the one aspect of the job where he has done well.

How ironic it is that the game that comes on his year anniversary is the game which effectively got his predecessor sacked. Peter Jackson had generally been a decent manager for the Imps, granted we were never going to win promotion under him, but he bought midtable safety and was also the last manager to record a win over a team that came up from the Conference, beating Dagenham 2-0 in January 2008.

Burton came to Sincil Bank last season and put in one of the best performances I’ve seen from an away side in recent years. City rarely looked like scoring during the entire game and Burton showed they were going to be no pushovers throughout the season.

Now Burton are making the trip along the A52 and up the A46 in a game where Sutton is desperately in need of a win. Due to the compact nature of the midtable, a victory could see us move up a lot of places in one go, a defeat on the other hand could see City slip to the bottom of the division.

With a poor record as a manager, Sutton desperately needs a win to appease some of the fan pressure, but even then one victory would not be enough for most of the fans and Saturday saw the first anti-Sutton chants from the crowd. It will be far from easy though as Sutton has only ever guided the Imps to one win on a Tuesday night out of a 11 attempts, and that only came because of a last minute own goal.

Logo : City Team News

Ian Pearce said after the Stevenage game that the Imps had come through the match with no new injury worries, meaning that only Scott Kerr (suspension) and Andy Hutchinson (injury) are the only definite absentees.

It will be interesting to see if Sutton sticks with the side that barely challenged Stevenage at the weekend. However, Sutton doesn’t seem to acknowledge when certain players aren’t playing well, and the stats about one player in particular shows the issues that Sutton has identifying problems.

THE LIKELY CITY STARTING XI
	Couldn't do a thing about the goal against Stevenage, infact, I don't think any goalkeeper in a world could have stopped that effort. It certainly won't get any better against a better Burton side.
	Another game, more goals conceded from the opposite side to which Anderson defends and yet he gets the anger from some of the Sincil Bank crowd for the goal.
	Watts' reputation as a decent defender is taking a bit of a battering at the moment as defenders are seemingly gliding into the box unopposed. Still the best defender we have but that's not really saying much.
	Swaibu came back into the first team against Stevenage and it quickly became apparantly why he has spent the recent past on the bench. He gave away quite a lot of free kicks and sliced clearances straight into the path of the strikers.
	Another game at the weekend where you'd be forgiven for not noticing Hughton. The youngster's dad was in the crowd on Saturday, but he wouldn't have had much chance to be impressed by his son as Cian rarely saw the ball.
	Carayol hasn't really played well since returning from injury and despite running at defenders quite happily at the weekend, he never really got going and his substitution was of little surprise.
	It's probably a good thing we have Jarrett in our squad, without him we'd have no creativity, not that any of his crosses actually get to anyone.
	Sutton have still lost every single match in which O'Keefe has played, the weekend made it 7 from 7 in that respect. There isn't one fan who can see what he offers to the team, but Sutton sees something....if he could let the fans know what it is then that would be great.
	After initially being a breath of fresh air when he came into the squad a few weeks ago, Clapham has slowly gone very quiet in games, maybe it'd be worth putting him in his natural defensive position....but that would be too obvious.
	Sutton really doesn't seem to know who his second striker is, this might explain why he only seems to play 4-5-1. With Drewe Broughton not really offering a lot, it is likely McCallum will finally be given a decent chance.
	Other than scoring two goals and getting very frustrated at the midfielders, Hutchinson still isn't really making an impact on loan.

Logo : Recent History

The clubs have only met twice in recent history, both last season. Much like Stevenage achieved at the weekend, Burton secured their first ever Football League away win at Sincil Bank. The visitors dominated the game and secured the win through Austin and Penn, the Imps barely having a shot in anger in what turned out to be the last time Peter Jackson would manage Lincoln at Sincil Bank.

City headed to the Pirelli in January this year on the back of three straight League wins (three wins in four games in all competiions). A crowd of just over 2,000 saw Cleveland Taylor score in the first minute. It was a closer game that it's Sincil Bank counterpart, but City couldn't find an equaliser.

Burton have one former Imps in their ranks. Greg Pearson played for the Imps at the beginning of the 2004/5 season after joining on loan from West Ham, he failed to score for the Imps but did score an equaliser against City for Rushden and Diamonds at the beginning of the 2005/6 season. No current Imps have played for Burton.

Danny Bacon was loaned directly from Lincoln to Burton in the 2005/6 season, however, he and Pearson are the only two players to have represented both clubs during the last ten years. However, Burton did have former Imp Guy Branston playing for them in the recent past, Branston playing at City towards the end of the 1990s.

Logo : Opposition

Anyone underestimating Burton Albion are in for a shock. They are certainly no pushovers and are certainly Paulpeschisolido capable of scoring goals. Paul Peschisolido is a fine example of a striker who has played at a high level and is doing a fine job in his first management job. They finished a very respectable 13th in their first ever season in the Football League and they are currently 10th in the table.

Peschisolido could easily call on numerous services from Birmingham City, with whom his wife Karen Brady is associated, however, "Pesch", whom once rejected a move to Lincoln as a player as he didn't want to play at this level, has always said he wants to be his own man as a manager and has rarely asked his wife for favours, well, we know at least not in the footballing sense.

Much like Stevenage, they come to Sincil Bank having not won on the road yet. That run includes a goalless draw at Barnet and a 3-3 draw at Rotherham that had seen them 3-0 down at one point, they have lost at Cheltenham and Gillingham however. They still score plenty of goals and have netted three goals in three separate matches so far, only failing to score three times.

Their squad also contains one of the division's best strikers in Shaun Harrad. He has six goals already this season after hitting 22 last season. In his last 15 games, he has scored 12 goals, very few strikers in the country have a similar record to that at the moment.