Liverpool fans prepared themselves for a season with one game a week most weeks. There would be less football, but it would mean more time for the players to recover and an ability to focus on what mattered most—the league. So of course it’s only taken two rounds of Premier League action before a mid-week match comes along, this time in the English Football League Cup.
And given the way Saturday’s game against Burnley went, we could all certainly use the quick turnaround. On the weekend, Liverpool had 81% possession and 26 shots, but most were from distance against a Burnley side that sat deep and sought to frustrate. A Burnley side that had just three shots but scored on two of them to win the game 2-0. For Liverpool, it was 90 minutes of frustration.
Now Jürgen Klopp will be looking to bounce back against Championship side Burton Albion, a side that have spent most of their history far further down the pyramid than they currently stand and for whom Tuesday will mark the first time ever they’ve faced off against the Reds. Last season, the Brewers were in League One and earned promotion by finishing second.
Until 2009, in fact, Burton Albion had never played in the Football League comprising the Championship and League One and Two. And their promotion from Blue Square’s Conference North to League Two almost didn’t happen that season after league sponsor Blue Square made a show of paying out bets they would win promotion—in February while they were 19 points clear at the top of the table.
Just a year later, they earned their promotion to the Championship after Nigel Clough—the man who led them to that 19-point lead in Conference North before he was poached mid-season by Derby County and the Brewers fell apart—returned to the club. In the early going this season, they have a win, a draw, and two losses for four points from four games. They have scored nine goals and conceded nine.
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