23/02/13 Burton Albion .v. Exeter - Pirelli Stadium, BurtonBurton Albion .v. Exeter City..3rd goal - Jacques MaghomaKEVIN Summerfield reckons Burton Albion suffered a hangover from their 4-0 win at Fleetwood Town when they faced Exeter City on Saturday.
The Brewers won 4-2 and had surged into a 4-0 lead – but Summerfield was far from happy with elements of Albion’s display.
“We think me might have been carried away a bit by the 4-0 win at Fleetwood last week and I think it showed,” said the 54-year-old assistant manager.
“We were a little bit lackadaisical and even though we were 3-0 up at half-time, we weren’t happy.
“We needed to up the tempo and we did that, but we haven’t been as good as we’ve been in recent weeks.
“I think the main thing we needed to come out of today was three points.”
Summerfield, who spoke to the media in place of manager Gary Rowett, hopes the Brewers hit top form again tomorrow night when they host Morecambe, kick-off 7.45pm, looking for a win to cement their place in the League Two top three.
“I would hope we play a little bit more like ourselves on Tuesday,” he said. “The standards we’re setting ourselves, we weren’t happy at 3-0 (against Exeter).
“We were saying ‘this isn’t working’, ‘that isn’t happening’ and ‘they’re not doing this, that or the other’.
“Hopefully we can get back to that on Tuesday night.”
Summerfield was pleased with parts of Burton’s performance, especially the shift put in by striker Michael Symes, who was outstanding throughout and scored the opening goal before further efforts from Marcus Holness, Jacques Maghoma and Lee Bell.
“Straight down the middle of the team was pretty solid today,” said the experienced coach. “Sharpsy (Ian Sharps) and Bob (Marcus Holness) did well for the majority and had no chance with the corner, probably the one goal they had a bit of luck at.
“The two central midfield players (Robbie Weir and Bell) have been the heart of our team this season and we know what we’re going to get from them.
“Every game is the same – they run and they press, forwards and backwards.
“Symesy produced an early goal and that seemed to kick him on and he produced a great team performance.
“He would have been my man of the match. I thought he was terrific.
“As a team performance from a centre-forward it was superb – the work he got through, the way he chased things down and flicked things on, the way he tried to hold it up when things weren’t going too well for the team.
“It was an old fashioned centre-forward’s display of guts and endeavour and I thought it was terrific.”
Summerfield is delighted at Burton grabbing three wins on the bounce against promotion rivals, and rates the 2-0 win over Rotherham United on February 9 as the best.
“The real big game for us was Rotherham,” he said. “We were looking at going without two or three of our key players and we wondered how we’d get through it.
“To actually beat them here in the circumstances I think turned our season around a little bit.
“They had real belief in each other and all the lads who came in were terrific. They won the game comfortably and they took that into the Fleetwood game last week and looked as composed in an away game as they have since I’ve been here.
“They also showed what cutting edge they’ve got.”
