How Burton Albion are one of the most in-form teams in English football after their managerial change

Heading into the turn of the new year, Burton Albion were rock bottom of League One, six points adrift of safety with survival prospects looking very dim. Manager Jake Buxton had just been removed from his position after a run of woeful results, with just two wins in 21 games in England’s third-tier.

On New Year’s Day, the club appointed former Chelsea and Leeds United centre-forward Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink as their manager in an attempt to rescue what was looking to be yet another disastrous season. This was the Dutchman’s second spell in charge of the Brewers, having gotten them promoted in the 2014/15 season from League Two before leaving for Queens Park Rangers. He was appointed alongside former Stevenage and Oldham Athletic manager Dino Maamria as his assistant.

The pair were in the stands for the first game, as they saw their team get trounced 5-1 by Oxford United at the Pirelli Stadium, but in their nine games in the dugout, Burton have won seven of those, including some very impressive wins against Hull City and most recently table leaders Peterborough United, pushing them off the bottom and rocketing them now to 18^th in the league table and fighting for a mid-table finish, an excellent turnaround of results in such a short space of time.

This article will be a tactical analysis of Burton Albion in the form of a scout report. It will be an analysis of the effective tactics that have been put into place since the arrival of Hasselbaink and Maamria at the start of the year and how they have completely revitalised the squad. It must be noted that this article was written prior to Burtons game on Tuesday night away at AFC Wimbledon and so the statistics used throughout may have changed slighty.

Formation and personnel

From a system point, Burton Hasselbaink did not make too many radical changes. Prior to his appointment, Buxton was predominantly using a 4-2-3-1 formation as well which is still widely used under the Dutch coach apart from one game against Charlton Athletic and Gillingham where a 4-1-4-1 was deployed.

The visual representation above shows the starting lineup from Burton Albion’s most recent match, a 2-1 win over Peterborough. The players on top of each list are the ones who started against The Posh in the 4-2-3-1 formation, whilst the rest are players who have mainly played in each position during Hasselbaink’s reign, in no particular order.

Before getting into tactical tweaks by the manager and his assistant Maamria, the club’s winter recruitment must be looked at as a huge reason behind Burton Albion’s success since the turn of the year.

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