DANIEL Bentley wants his 100th Southend United appearance to be one of the most memorable when the Shrimpers take on promotion rivals Burton Albion tonight.

Bentley will become just the 12th product of the club’s youth system to have played a century of games for Blues’ first team when he lines up between the sticks at the Pirelli Stadium this evening.

And the Wickford based 21-year-old is eager to celebrate the landmark in style.

“To achieve a century of appearances is brilliant and hopefully we can get a result which makes it even more memorable because it’s obviously a really big game,” said Bentley.

“I’m very proud and honoured to have played 100 games for my home-town club and I could only have dreamt of doing this when I was coming through the youth ranks here.

“In fact, if you had told me as kid I would’ve played this many matches by the age of 21 then I would’ve laughed you out the room.

“But I’m really pleased to be doing it and if you look up and down the country there are probably only a handful of goalkeepers who have played that many games at my age so it’s a good achievement too.”

Bentley made his first team debut as a second half substitute against Torquay United in October 2011 and has since gone on to establish himself as the club’s number one goalkeeper.

However, the former Bromfords School pupil has been forced to wait his 100th appearance after suffering a groin injury which forced him to miss four matches out of five before returning for Saturday’s 3-1 win at Dagenham & Redbridge.

“Being injured for a couple of weeks was really hard to take,” said Bentley.

“I’m not a lad who is injured very often. I work hard to keep myself in tip top shape but I got this niggling injury which needed time to settle down.

“But thankfully I was able to go back in against Dagenham, after the great work of physio Ben Clarkson and it felt really good.”

Bentley also impressed on his comeback against the Daggers and made a stunning last gasp save to stop substitute Jodi Jones hitting the back of the net.

And he now wants Blues to build on Saturday’s triumph as they bid to close the gap on the automatic promotion places.

“We need to take the Dagenham performance into the Burton game now,” said Bentley.

“We know what they’re all about because we played them enough times last season and we need to be mentally and physically strong against them if we’re to get the win.”

Shrimpers boss Phil Brown is also keen to come out on top and he is thrilled to again be able to call on Bentley.

“For Daniel to have 100 games under his belt is phenomenal,” said Brown.

“It’s a good return for a 21-year-old and he has a great career ahead of him which will hopefully be with the Shrimpers for as long as possible.”