Joey Barton delighted with Fleetwood’s start to the season

Posted Sunday, September 13, 2020 by PA

Fleetwood Town dispelled Joey Barton’s fears of a slow start to the season with a 2-1 victory at home to Burton.

The Cod Army missed out on promotion to the Championship last season but showed no after-effects as they made a winning start to the new campaign, Paddy Madden hitting a late winner after Burton had looked like salvaging a draw.

And their head coach was delighted to follow their two cup victories with a League One win.

“At home you want to get off to a decent start, especially after the disappointment of missing out in the play-offs last year,” he said.

“You always worry how the first league game after that will go, you wonder if there’s pity or sorrow in the group but to be fair to the lads the way they started the game was outstanding.

“I thought up until five or 10 minutes into the second half when Burton started to get a foothold – as you’d expect because they’ve got some good quality players – we were really good.

“We had that disappointment of Burton equalising but we showed the character to go up the other end and get the winning goal.

“We were probably a tad unfortunate not to have more, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team of mine hit the bar and post and have so many cleared off the line. Thankfully we got maximum points though.”

New recruit Callum Camps had put Fleetwood ahead after 17 minutes and though both sides hit the goal frame on more than one occasion it was not until midway through the second period that John Brayford headed in the Brewers’ equaliser.

However, they were denied a point by Madden, who reacted first to fire in a loose ball 11 minutes from time.

And their manager, Jake Buxton, managed to find some positives despite his disappointment.

“We had a couple of opportunities and ultimately they played quite direct and the second goal came when we didn’t compete as well as we wanted to,” he said.

“It was a scrappy goal and it came when we were on top in the game so to concede from another set-piece is disappointing.

“Ultimately you’re not happy with the result but performance-wise there’s something to build on, you can see we’ve got some good players but we’ve lost the game and we’ll have to address the set plays on Monday.”

Buxton will also speak to defender John Joe O’Toole, who will miss the next three games after his stoppage-time dismissal for a foul on Mark Duffy.

“He missed six games last year,” he added. “It’s happened again so we’ll have to address that.

“His foot was high and his studs were showing so I’ve no complaints about the red card”.