Burton Albion picked up a vitally important three points last weekend at home to Derby County to keep their dreams of survival alive.

Liam Boyce, Luke Murphy and Lucas Akins scored the goals on their way to a victory over play-off hopefuls Derby to move them off the bottom of the league and into 23rd place.

Their task ahead is still sizeable.

Burton are currently sitting on 35 points and Birmingham City are five points ahead on 40 with just three games left to play.

It looks like the fairytale in the second tier could well be coming to an end for minnows Burton, who have defied everyone's expectations in the past few years to win back to back promotions and stay in the Championship last season.

It is another period of transition for Burton and it will be interesting to see how they bounce back if they do go down.

Here are three things that might have changed by this time next month.

By this time next month, Burton Albion could be a League One club once again.

As they are still five points adrift of safety, this is looking increasingly likely.

A number of Burton players are out of contract this summer and the club will be keen to wrap up their future as soon as the season ends - one way or the other - so they know who they have in their squad for next year.

According to transfermarkt, first team stars such as Stephen Bywater, Lloyd Dyer, Luke Varney, Jake Buxton, Tom Flanagan, Tom Naylor, Tomas Egert and Hope Akpan are out of contract at the end of this season.

There is uncertainty surrounding Nigel Clough's future as Burton Albion manager if they go down.

Clough has done a good job considering his resources so will the board back him to get them up next season in League One? Or will they choose to bring in another manager instead?