Why Burton Albion are believers going into crucial Sunderland clash

The 31-year-old former Crawley and MK Dons defender admits that the Brewers were given a huge shot in the arm when beating Derby to rise to second-bottom spot last weekend.

Burton are still five points from safety, but McFadzean told burtonalbionfc.co.uk: “There’s a real belief in the lads.

“Obviously we’ve got to take it a game at a time and Saturday is the first one.

“I think we must win that to put pressure on the other teams.

“There’s a belief that we have got a chance of staying up now.

“Obviously Saturday is a must-win game and, if all the results go for us and we win, we’ll be going into Bolton’s game (knowing that) if we beat them, we could go above them and it might go down to the last day, which we’re hoping it does.”

McFadzean, who started his career at Sheffield United without playing a league game for the Blades, reckons three wins might be needed to keep Burton up.

He added: “We’re relishing it now.

“We never thought we were down - we thought it would be hard.

“But when you look at our fixtures and their fixtures, if we win Saturday, it’s game on.

“We can’t look past Saturday because we need to beat Sunderland – but Bolton won’t want to come here needing a result.

“Hopefully we can take it into the last game being a point above them and playing to stay in this league.

“Realistically, I think we need maximum points to give us that real chance.

“Sometimes we’ve been better when we’ve had pressure on us.

Obviously, the home form hasn’t been very good, but (against Derby) we probably didn’t play as well as we usually do but we won.

“Hopefully we can go to Sunderland full of confidence and get a good win.”

After tomorrow, Burton finish off against Bolton and Preston.