9That was football but not as we know it Dean, our 6-0 destruction of Shrewsbury Town last weekend and we will be hoping for more of the same when Charlie Kirk's new crew trek into town this weekend.
Four players with Addicks connections of different sorts are in the Burton squad that will trek to The Valley to face us on Easter Monday. Because two of those are loanees, only two will play but all four will have a keen interest in how The Brewers perform. One in particular is someone that could yet have a future with The Addicks, depending on Dean Holden's plans for the coming season. Charlie Kirk is a player on whom many in the jury were very much undecided during his time at Charlton.
We've definitely seen the flashes of talent that led Nigel Adkins to sign the winger as part of efforts to add more creativity to his side. Unfortunately for both Adkins and Kirk, that side failed to gel, seeming a bit lightweight at times with the Burton loanee as one of the prime examples of that. At the same time, his loan move to Burton Albion in the January transfer window had a "Roy of the Rovers" feel to it. Having scored twice against them in November, he's now in their colours for the return fixture. Back then, that draw against our lowly rivals left us four points adrift of the play off places. Now we're 12 points adrift, with games running out and playing for pride.
Burton on the other hand are still on the edges of a relegation battle that increasingly looks like Forest Green, Cambridge along with two from the quartet of Morecambe, Accrington, Oxford United and the in-form MK Dons. Though on 42 points, The Brewers will still be looking over their shoulders. However they have had a significant upturn in form since Christmas and as such, they could cause us a few problems. They have a couple of players in their squad who are more than capable of getting a result even discounting Charlie Kirk who can't play against his parent club and the same for Sam Lavelle who made his way to brewery country just before midnight on the 31st of January.
Even without Lavelle and Kirk left on the starboard bough, we can still expect a couple of familiar stars to shoot into town on Easter Monday. Centre-back Deji Oshilaja was with the Addicks from 2019-2021 before joining the Brewers for whom he has become an important part of the defence. Then of course there's Craig MacGillivray who's also likely to have a point to prove between the posts - having made the move to The Brewers after his displacement by someone with the most Burton-friendly name in all of professional football, in the form of Ashley Maynard-Brewer (a one man walking advertisement for why the River Ale House at Greenwich surely has to sponsor us at some point in the future).
Another loan player to watch out for is striker Dale Taylor from Nottingham Forest. He has been praised for tireless performances and crucial goals of late, so he's somebody who could prove a handful for our back line on Easter Monday. Also they have a Powell at the heart of the team - Joe Powell, an attacking midfielder who is in a good burst of form of late. They're probably a lot more solid now than when we faced them back in November.
But ... now that we have really come out of our shell with that Shrewsbury performance ... we have nothing to fear from these Easter fixtures and should be confident of picking up at least four points from the Burton and Bristol Rovers' games. Famous last words from someone who thinks that, if we'd shown this form earlier in the season or had our present management in place to begin with, we might actually be thinking of getting beamed up to the Championship. Now we're just playing for a top half finish and advertisements for next season's ticket sales