Exeter City 1 Burton Albion 1: Match report

Exeter City and Burton Albion played out a 1-1 draw at St James Park, with both goals coming after the break.

Jacob Blyth was Burton’s goalscorer on the hour-mark – and it looked like it was going to be enough until Christian Ribeiro headed in City’s equaliser with less than five minutes on the clock.

The result kept up Exeter’s record of being the only Football League team to have scored and conceded in all of their home games in the league to date this season.

And while it didn’t earn Exeter a place amongst the play-off places, it represented a decent point against a resolute Burton outfit.

Manager Paul Tisdale named an unchanged starting XI – the only change came on the bench, where Scot Bennett returned from injury to step into the breach in place of Ryan Harley, while Matt Oakley retained the captain’s armband for the fixture.

Chances were at a premium in the first quarter of an hour – Liam Sercombe couldn’t quite pick out run of striker Graham Cummins through the middle. At the other end Darragh Lenihan opted to pass rather than shoot when the ball came in from the right and saw the chance pass.

Exeter began to see more and more of the ball in the central third, with the midfield trio of Sercombe, David Noble and Matt Grimes pulling the strings.

Noble tried a neat scooped pass towards Tom Nichols, who headed back into the path of Alex Nicholls on the edge of the box, but he lashed his left-footed volley wide of target.

As the clock ticked beyond the half-hour mark, the Brewers began to stamp their mark on the game and Lenihan pulled a first-time shot wide from 25 yards as he was laid in by Jacob Blyth, before Robbie Weir saw a volley deflected wide off the thigh of a team-mate.

Alex MacDonald was the latest to chance his arm – the ball fell kindly to him as a forward ball cannoned into his path off teammate Kelvin Maynard, but he cut across his strike and hit it wide.

However Exeter were also showing signs of threat and Nicholls shot well from the right but it was fielded well by goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin from a narrow angle.

Half-time: Exeter City 0 Burton Albion 0