Burton’s firefighter on survival ambitions, Venky’s and lessons from the Class of ’92 at Salford

INTERVIEW GARY BOWYER

• EFL

• NON-LEAGUE

• SCOTLAND

Interview Sean Cole

Burton were 23rd in League One when you took over in December. What were your thoughts going into the job?

It was a fantastic opportunity. I’d been out of work since I won the Scottish Championship with Dundee. I’d missed out on a couple of jobs in League One, turned down several offers in England and abroad, then I got this chance and, after speaking to the people here, I saw it was exciting. I already knew one or two, which made it much easier to settle in. Everybody’s been working together to try to get us out of the bottom four.

How would you assess it so far?

We evaluated the squad and tried to make them harder to play against. With January approaching, we had to identify players who could come in and make a difference. They’ve certainly done that – in particular, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson. We found a formation to suit the personnel [3-5-2] and the partnership between Jon and Rumarn Burrell has really flourished – they’ve scored a lot of goals between them [seven in their first three starts together, all wins]. We’ve caused teams issues by getting more balls and more bodies into the box.