Burton Albion midfielder Luke Murphy has admitted that the team now have 'three cup finals' if they are to avoid relegation to League One.
The Brewers looked set to drop down the third tier of English football this weekend as they took on Derby County at the Pirelli Stadium. However, the hosts brushed aside Gary Rowett's men with an impressive 3-1 victory, their first at home since September.
'It's not over'
Murphy, who scored the second goal with a sumptuous effort, has suggested that with their victory, the Brewers are not certainties for relegation just yet.
He said: "It’s not over. It’s not impossible. We’ve just been talking about it. We’re going to go to Sunderland and have a right go. You know if we get three points there, we put pressure on the teams above us and stranger things have happened,"
"We’ve got three cup finals now. Whatever the outcome will be, we’re going to make sure we go into every game giving 100%. What will be, will be but we won’t leave anything on the field."
The Midlands outfit are now five points from safety with only three games to play of the Championship season. Whilst time is running out, Murphy admits that their position in the table does not tell the full story considering their positive performances throughout the campaign.
He said: "There’s been so many games this season where we were so close to doing it, just it never happened. We had draws where we’ve dominated the game I felt.
"It was really important today to do that especially with our circumstances now and going into the last three games. Everybody in the dressing room feels as though they’ve given themselves a real good chance."
'We finally put to bed that curse of playing at home'
The Brewers' eye-catching victory over Derby at the weekend was their first at home since September, a run of 17 games. Murphy admits that is was satisfying to finally notch a long-awaited victory on home soil, especially with such an emphatic performance from the whole team.
He said: "Everybody was working their socks off in the first-half. We got the first goal and for them to score with the one chance that they had, would have been a little bit deflating going in at half-time not in front. For us to get that lead, gave us a real platform for the second-half and we went on and got that third which was a real big plus,"
"We finally put to bed that curse of playing at home. We’ve put in some real good performances at home and not really got the results that we deserved, whether that’s luck or mistakes that we’ve made, but I feel that we go the rub of the green today, we took our chances, and we didn’t make any mistakes."