Dino Maamria hailed a “brilliant performance” after Burton made it three league wins on the bounce for the first time since February with a 1-0 win at 10-man Lincoln.
Daniel Mandroiu left the hosts a man down 10 minutes into the second half after a rash challenge on Josh Gordon before Jack Burroughs’ own goal three minutes later sealed the Imps’ fate.
Maamria’s men are now six league games unbeaten after the Brewers’ hierarchy stuck by their man through a painful seven-game winless streak to start the season.
After Albion’s third successive win at Sincil Bank, Maamria said: “I’m thrilled. I thought the lads were terrific today to come to a place like this where they don’t lose many.
“We came here again, put in a brilliant performance, and got a good win. The only negative is we didn’t score more goals.
“We’ve got to keep improving all the time. We’ve got to stay grounded.
“I thought we were excellent in the first half. We controlled the ball and played how we wanted to play.
“The worst part of our performance was after we scored when they were down to 10 men.
“We started going long too often, almost as if we were too desperate to win the game. We ended up doing things that weren’t in the game management.
“We lacked that quality in the final third, and that’s something we need to work on. I said it after the Wigan game, when their man should have been sent off, that I was glad he wasn’t because it’s harder playing against 10 men sometimes.”
Mark Kennedy saw his misfiring side slip to successive league defeats as their current slump stretched to just one win from six.
On Mandroiu’s game-defining red card, he said: “There’s no dispute that it’s a red card. I can’t really argue with it and it changed the game.
“I can’t defend the goal because of that but there has to be a mentality, a toughness and a maturity after that happens.
“I’m 47 and played a lot of football and I thought to myself that we just needed to manage the game for the next five minutes, but we didn’t do that.
“He apologised to his team-mates. He’s a really good guy. What’s disappointing for me is I’ve had multiple conversations with Danny this week and what’s hard for me is to see him get a red card so quickly after those conversations because they’ve been hard conversations.
“It’s mind-boggling for me to understand. We’re here to educate and help him and not destroy his talent.
“Danny’s future is simple for me. He could be in the Championship or back in Ireland. If he changes his mentality and the structure to his game then he can go wherever he wants because he’s got exceptional talent.”