'GIVE MY BREWERS THE PRAISE FOR REVIVAL'

BURTON Albion will spend another season in League One after staving off a relegation that once looked inevitable. But their manager Dino Maamria isn’t happy.

- Chris Dunlavy

“What we’ve done here this season is incredible,” says the Tunisian, who took over when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink walked out in despair after taking one point from the Brewers’ first seven matches.

“When I came in, we didn’t have one striker. We didn’t have anything. Now we’re 14th, and if you look at the table from when I came in, we’re ninth. With the squad we have, the budget we have, the teams we’re above - it’s an incredible achievement from us.

“But we don’t really get any recognition on the TV shows or in the papers - because we’re Burton Albion and because we made it look so easy.

“If we’d stayed up on the last day of the season, maybe it would be more of a headline. It’s a shame because what’s happened here is remarkable.”

Hasselbaink’s former assistant is entitled to blow his own trumpet. The 49-year-old, a veteran firefighter who previously managed Oldham and Stevenage, inherited a nightmare at the Pirelli. In a situation echoing Scott Parker’s demise at Bournemouth, Hasselbaink resigned after telling chairman Ben Robinson that the squad he’d built on his allotted £2m budget was not good enough to remain in the third tier.

To put that £2m figure in context, the average annual salary for a player in League One is around £250,000, whilst the division’s highest-paid player - Sheffield Wednesday star Barry Bannan - takes home £1m a year.

National League winners Wrexham, who are backed by Hollywood duo Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, are rumoured to operate on a playing budget north of £3m.

Worse yet, Gassan Ahadme’s £100,000 switch to Ipswich on deadline day left the Brewers without a single recognised forward - or any time to buy one.