Ahead of Wanderers’ final away game of the 2017/18 campaign, Phil Parkinson gave us his thoughts ahead of a trip to the Pirelli Stadium to take on Burton Albion in what could be a telling weekend at the bottom end of the Sky Bet Championship table.
Speaking to bwfc.co.uk at the pre-match press conference, the manager discussed the following points…
On the importance of the game…
We go into this one after the bonus of Barnsley being beaten by Nottingham Forest on Tuesday, however I said to the lads in a meeting on Monday that we’ve got to go into this game against Burton looking to send them down, so that’s them and Sunderland out of the equation.
Then, if it does go to the last game of the season, there’s only one place left in the relegation zone that we’ll all be competing to try and avoid.
The boost of Barnsley being beaten on Tuesday has lifted the lads, it is naturally going to. For us, it is all about when it matters most, can we produce one of our best performances of the season.
On not taking the Brewers lightly…
Without doubt, we can’t be taking Burton lightly. They beat us here and they’ve had a good run of late. Looking at their recent home games, Middlesbrough went there and didn’t really look up for the game and it took a last minute equaliser for them to get back into it.
Derby went there and felt they could just turn up and play and that would be enough to beat Burton and then they got beat. Prior to that, Hull went there and were really up for the game, focused on what they had to do and ended up being comfortable winners.
If we go down to Burton, with the closeness of the surroundings and the tightness of the pitch and not be prepared to battle for every single ball, then we’ll come unstuck.
On raising our performance levels…
We know clearly what we’ve got to do. We’ve had a good chat with the lads this week about the recent run of games and getting our performance levels back to what they were at Reading away, Sheffield Wednesday away and the Aston Villa game – the last one before the international break.
I’ve spoken to the players individually about what they need to do to get back to those standards, and if they do that, then we’ve got a good chance.
On the squad status…
The squad are feeling good coming into this one, but we’ve got a couple of injury problems at the moment. Filipe Morais has got a slight problem with his calf and Antonee Robinson with his shoulder. We’ll assess both of those closer to kick-off, and we’ll pick a team which we feel is the best one to start this game.
On calling on experience from last season…
We kind of had a similar situation last year; obviously we were fighting at the top end of the table, but it was really tight. There was a lot of tension around the club in that period, so it is a similar type of feeling.
We’ve just got to remain very focused and determined so that the hard-work that has gone into this season is worthwhile and we can get into the summer as a Championship club.
And finally, his message to travelling Wanderers fans…
The away support, in particularly recently has been great. Stay with us because it will be a tough game and we know that.
It’ll be a real battle and it might not be pretty at times, because there’s a lot at stake, but just stay right with the team and do your bit to stay behind the lads. If you do that, then I’m confident we’re going to play very well.