Finding a way to win the bad games is what successful teams do...

Nobody – absolutely nobody – wins promotions by being brilliant all of the time.

Footballers are human beings, not stats on a computer game, and sometimes things go wrong, as they did for Burton Albion at Bristol Rovers.

As much as it’s a cliché, promotions are won as much by teams working hard enough to find a result when the going is tough and, on Tuesday night, that was a test Burton Albion passed with flying colours.

It was a grim, icily cold night in Aldershot and the Brewers were up against it when they conceded a goal in three minutes.

It would be easy to criticise the defence, as Aldershot’s on-loan striker, Paul McCallum, got beyond them and scored from a narrow angle but the rest of the match showed that it really was just one of those things which can happen sometimes. The Brewers got caught cold and McCallum, as it happens, barely had a meaningful kick for the rest of the night.

Lifted by an unbeaten run of six games and buoyed by the goal, Aldershot had a good first half-hour, snapping into their challenges and playing with a bit of confidence.

What impressed me during that period, though, and what was so different to last season’s Burton, or even Burton away from home earlier this season, was that they appeared to believe in what they were trying to achieve, even when things weren’t working out for them.

The shape didn’t change, the style didn’t change. The effort most certainly didn’t. For a while, they were rushed by Aldershot’s keenness but, towards the end of the half, the Shots’ fire was going out and the Brewers were starting to get on top.

Looking back at my notes, all the half-chances were falling to Burton, save for a shot from midfielder Danny Rose which Stuart Tomlinson beat away efficiently to his left.

The replays show that Robbie Weir’s equaliser, a minute before half-time, was a better goal than it looked at the time, a nice, controlled volley from the edge of the box.

Burton had done enough to deserve to go in level.

In the second half, they did more than enough to deserve the win that came their way when three Aldershot defenders shamefully failed to challenge Michael Symes for a high ball and he punished them with a volley high into the net from the edge of the box.

That one looked a good goal at the time; it looks an even better one on the replays and a willingness to shoot is a feature of this Burton side.

We scarcely saw any goals from outside the box in the first couple of seasons in the league, the team tending to try to walk the ball in, but they are flying in from all angles now. Confidence does that for you but so does being encouraged to have a go by the management, I rather suspect.

It wasn’t a great game, let’s not kid ourselves, but the Brewers found a way to win it. It’s a very good quality to have.

As usual, the opposition manager, Andy Scott, wasn’t in any mood to praise Burton, just as Mark Yates of Cheltenham and Graham Alexander of Fleetwood haven’t been recently.

Perhaps to acknowledge Burton’s qualities would be an admission that they were out-guessed tactically by Messrs Rowett and Summerfield.

Strangely, it was an Aldershot fan who summed it up best in the after-match comments. This was on their forum:

“I thought they were excellent, their work rate was fantastic ALL game. I think the reason so many of our players had a bad game was down to them, they never gave any of ours a moment. In fact I may be so bold as to suggest that they’re not getting enough credit for their performance. OK maybe they didn’t play beautiful, free flowing football but they earned their win.
And sure, we contained them but, apart from the early goal, we didn’t look like scoring and the longer the game went on I thought there only looked like there would be one winner.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself!

*********

Poor Alex MacDonald. A super three points and then he puts his phones on top of his car when he stops for a pee and drives off forgetting about them! When he remembers and goes back, he finds a lorry has driven over them.

The on-loan Burnley winger recounted this tale of woe on Twitter when he got home.

That apart, things seem to be going rather well for him at Burton and I already get the impression that a lot of Burton fans would welcome him being signed permanently at the end of the season.

Wholehearted triers are welcomed by most supporters and MacDonald is certainly one of those. We also found out at Aldershot that he has a long throw. He delivered two of them at the EBB Stadium, one better than the other, and it’s another string to Burton’s bow.

Thanks to the Burton supporter who had a scout around Burnley’s forum and found out that the fans there rate MacDonald too.

That is, they rate him as a bloke and a trier. They think he perhaps isn’t Championship class (he still has time to become that at 22 of course) but they also wish him well if he ends up at Burton.

Loans in Scotland (twice) and Plymouth will have been hard work. MacDonald, who has a baby daughter, and lives in Runcorn, says he is ready to settle. Perhaps it will be here.

* Latest Burton Albion news is reached quickly here:  www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/burtonalbion#axzz2NE6u2uiu