Score predictions - Burton home

A return to league action this weekend sees a 9th placed reds side entertain 22nd placed Burton Albion. We're priced at 4/7 to take all 3 points, with the visitors available at 5/1 to cause an upset.

Burton have started slowly for the second consecutive season, but alarmingly for them this time, they don't appear to have a regular goalscorer. Just 2 points and 2 goals so far, from their 6 league games, albeit you could say there have been signs of progress, with back to back draws against Bolton and Wycombe, before a narrow defeat to current 3rd placed side Exeter City last time out. With the exception of Shrewsbury, all of the sides Burton have faced so far occupy places in the top half of the table.

Dino Maamria's side finished last season fairly strongly, albeit in quite inconsistent fashion. Nethertheless, the points they dropped were generally against the stronger sides, away from home, and they triumphed on home soil over both us and Wednesday in the closing stages of the season.

At Oakwell, our record vs Burton is won 3, drawn 2 and lost 1. Interestingly, Devante Cole has 3 goals in his 2 appearances for the reds on home soil vs Burton. His brace in December last season was enough to secure the points against the Brewers, and came 8 years after his goal capped off a 5-0 FA Cup round 1 victory under Danny Wilson. Our only home defeat to Burton came courtesy of 2 first half goals for the Brewers in 2018, in a season where both sides were relegated from the Championship. Danny Pinillos scored for Jose Morais' side (which, looking back, doesn't look a bad side on paper).

Referee Marc Edwards has averaged 5 yellow cards per game in his 4 appointments so far this season. Last season, he only issued 1 red card, and throughout his career, he's given very few red cards out. Coincidentally, he issued a red card in Burton's favour when sending off Rochdale Oli Rathbone in the Brewers 2-0 away win in February 2021; Edwards only red card of that season. In both of his reds appointments last season, we won comfortably and garnered just 1 yellow card in each (3-1 at home to Portsmouth in the league, and 4-2 away to Doncaster in the EFL trophy). His last Burton appointment was their 2-2 home draw with Cambridge in February 2022, again issuing just 1 yellow card to the hosts.

A week to work with his squad, his new signings and his players coming back to fitness can only have helped Neill Collins. Whilst our performances at home have been mixed to say the least (cup games included), I do think there's clear signs of improvement. I think this will be a tight game, as Burton are fairly resolute defensively, but I do think we'll edge it. I'm going for 1-0 with Cole getting on the scoresheet again.

 

0-0

 

This game will be the one that starts to show if we are the real deal or not. Needs to be a comfortable home win, yet this is Barnsley so I’m going for a 1-1 draw.

 

Heart wants a 4-0 but head says we'll choke 0-0.

 

Barnsley 1-176 Burton Albion

 

2-0 victory

 

2-0 Barnsley, promotion push gathering steam

 

4-1 Reds.

 

Don't think we won any first game after a break last season under Duff..
You'd think we'd win but we'll see.
Still not on the HMS pi55 the league yet, need the defence to show up against the better sides..
Tuesday should be a better test of where we are..

2-0 reds.. hopefully.

 

A comfortable 3-0.
Cole, 2 & Cosgrove.

 

3-0 Reds

 

4 _0

 

We only had one international break under duff which was when the Ipswich game was postponed just in case they happened to get any call ups at some point. But even then all it meant was the postponement of one game, we still played 4 games in 15 days

 

The break came at the wrong time for us. 1-1

 

2-0. Cole and Cosgrove.

 

Should have too much for them all over the field. A comfortable 3-1 to us. Think it'll follow the trajectory of the Scotland v England game. Open up a 2-0 lead, then they get a goal out of nothing, making for a nervy 15 minutes. We seal it late on.

 

2-0 Cole and McAtee

 

3-1

 

2-0 Reds. Two Jasper own goals.