by Paul Williams

We beat Burton in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy last season so that is one omen that is in our favour ahead of tonight’s meeting at the Keepmoat.

It’s a tournament that holds found memories for Rovers’ fans but Paul Dickov must be tempted to rest a few of his depleted first-team squad in a competition that doesn’t normally get serious for clubs until the semi-final stage. You would certainly think that the likes of Andy Butler, James Coppinger and Andy Williams could do with a break having played every minute of every game so far.

But competition rules state that you have to play at least half of the team that started the previous league game and the manager has few option to switch things around, though Jack McKay, Billy Whitehouse and Liam Mandeville must all be close to a start and Cameron Stewart got half an hour in the win over Fleetwood.

The Brewers have made an excellent start to life in League 1 and have only lost once so far. So have Rovers, of course, but we’ve only managed one win compared to Albion’s four.

The visitors could include former Rovers midfielder Mark Duffy, who is on loan from Birmingham and scored his team’s winner at Shrewsbury on Saturday, though Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink will also make changes and is still without another loanee, Zeli Ismail, as well as Darius Charles.

This is very much a game that could go either way, though you’d suspect that there wouldn’t be too many tears shed by the losers. At least we’ll be spared extra time if it ends all-square in 90 minutes as this competition goes straight into a penalty shoot-out.