Bradley wants Burton loss swiftly out of Town’s system

Town defender Sonny Bradley wants his side to put Saturday’s defeat at Burton Albion out of their minds as quickly as possible.
Sonny Bradley hooks the ball back across goal at BurtonSonny Bradley hooks the ball back across goal at Burton
Sonny Bradley hooks the ball back across goal at Burton

The Hatters passed up the chance to seal promotion to the Championship at the weekend and also secure the League One title, conceding twice in the final 30 minutes to go down to a 2-1 defeat at the Pirelli Stadium.

However, Tuesday night’s results means that Town are up, as they host Oxford United on Saturday in the knowledge a victory should ensure they will be crowned champions too.

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Speaking before Portsmouth’s defeat to Peterborough United in midweek, Bradley said: “With a chance of getting promoted and losing, at the end of the game in the dressing room everyone’s disappointed quite naturally.

“But we don’t have time to let that sink in, we’ve got to shake that off straight away,

“We’ve just got to go and win next week, so as quick as we can we’ve got to forget about this, look at the goals we conceded, try to improve on that slightly if we can.

“There’s one game to go, it’s still in our hands, we’re still top of the league, and if we play like we have done at home all season then we should beat Oxford and do it.”

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Bradley admitted he and the players will know just how much, if at all, that setback will have affected them during the build-up to the clash.

He continued: “We’ll soon find out.

“We haven’t had a training week this season where the lads have been down at all.

“Even this week off the back of Tuesday’s disappointment (2-2 with AFC Wimbledon), the lads came in, Thursday, Friday and trained really well.

“We were looking good, we started the game well, conditions didn’t help both sides, but we got the goal we wanted and saw it out until half time.

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“After that we had the wind and you’d like to think we’d have gone on and won the game but we didn’t.

“We gave away a free kick and allowed them to put the ball in our box, didn’t defend the set-piece well enough and it’s a goal.

“Then later on, a cross comes in, we’re not tight enough and it’s into the back of our net again.

“It’s hard to come back from that, it’s a disappointing day, but we’ve got to lift ourselves and go again Saturday.”

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Although Town had the lead courtesy of James Collins’ 25th goal of the season, Bradley had no complaints about the final result.

He added: “I wouldn’t say it was a game of two halves as I think they were probably better than us probably in both halves to be honest, I’ve got to admit it.

“First half it was difficult because of the wind, the wind was so strong, any goal kicks, any clearances, we really couldn’t get it past the half way line.

“It felt like it was constant pressure and a goal for us relieves the pressure.

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“We grow into the game a little bit and go in at 1-0, things were looking good.

“Then we come out second half and we lost ourselves a little bit. That’s not how we’ve played this season.

“Just because we had the wind, I think we tried to go a little bit more direct and try to pick up the second balls from James. It didn’t work for us, that’s not what we’re about, long ball football, we haven’t done that all season.

“We’ve played out from the back and we’ve come away from that a little bit which is disappointing.

“Next week in training, we need to get back to that, remember how we’ve done so well this season, remember how we’ve got results and then impose that on the Oxford team.”