Burton Albion and Nottingham Forest U21 shared the spoils in a Group North fixture that ended 1:1 after ninety minutes before penalties decided the outcome. The match was played on Tuesday evening at Burton's ground, and by then the visitors had already lost their composure in the final moments. We had tipped the hosts to win, confidence at 46 per cent, but the game took a different turn.
Adeile opened the scoring in the twenty-fifth minute, giving Burton the lead they would hold for nearly half an hour. Clarke equalised for the visitors in the fifty-fourth, and from that point the match settled into a rhythm neither side could break. To be fair, both sides created very little of real substance, as the statistics would confirm.
H. Araujo received a yellow card in the eighty-fourth and was then sent off in the ninetieth, a double punishment that changed the complexion of the evening. Forest U21 were left with ten men in stoppage time, and what followed was a penalty shootout neither side had planned for. The red card caught them out, and you could see the panic set in.
Seven penalties were scored and two missed, with Burton finding the net through Scutt, Smith, Adom, Whitehall, Adeile, Nolan and Newton. Krubally and Henry failed to convert for the visitors, and that was enough to send the hosts through. By then the match had long since ceased to be about football.
On the numbers, Burton dominated possession at sixty-one per cent and registered 106 attacks against 75 for the visitors. Both sides created zero big chances, and shot accuracy was poor — ten per cent for the hosts, twenty-five for the visitors. The result tells its own story.
Burton sit third in Group North with three points from three games, one win and two defeats. Forest U21 occupy fourth place with a single point from three losses. The shootout victory means little in the grand scheme, but at least the hosts have something to show for the evening.
