In a few years remember the name Stuart Dallas. A young Northern Irish footballer who joined Brentford last summer. He played ostensibly his debut game tonight in the FA Cup win over Bradford 4-2. He had a great game, good skill, good effort and my humble prediction is that he will go far. You heard it here first!
Football is a strange game. Last week Bradford beat Arsenal and tonight they were playing Brentford in an FA Cup replay at Griffin Park. This is a game that in all honesty no-one really wanted. Brentford thought they were through to the third round as Bradford got expelled for playing an ineligible player. A minor crime but a crime all the same. For reasons that no-one in football understands the FA rolled over and reinstated them .A chilly night in front of a small crowd, with one side of the ground closed. A decent game which Brentford seemed to want to lose. They gave Bradford their opening goal with a bad defensive error, scored through a penalty on the stroke of half-time, then gave away a penalty in extra time ( though what for no-one in the ground knew), but then decided to score 3 goals in under 5 minutes to win the game. Bradford were actually quite poor in defence and if this is the standard at the top of League 2, then I never want to go back there.
Final score 4-2 to Brentford. The prize? A trip to Southend United on Jan 5th that will not be an easy game. So does this mean Brentford are better than Arsenal? Football is a funny game built on confidence and often some luck. This Brentford team might just be getting promoted this season.
The linesman on the far side was Sian Massey and she looked one of the best linesman we have had.
This was one of those games that restores faith in professional football. The weather was right for football, cloudy with a sense of rain in the air. Floodlights on in the second half. The ground had almost 7000 in there, a decent crowd considering not so many had made the trip down from Carlisle almost 400 miles away. The Brentford board and directors also did their bit by allowing fans to buy tickets up to 4 pm friday at only 10£.
But this was a great game of football. Carlisle came to play and not just block up one end for 90 minutes. Brentford took the lead in the first half with a nice finish in the box from Jonathon Douglas and then gifted Carlisle an equaliser following a dreadful defensive error. But Brentford went on to get the winner in the second half and combined with a penalty save by the Brentford keeper Simon Moore about 10 minutes from the end got the 3 points.
So why was this a good game? Well put simply effort and running all game from all 20 outfield players. Great tackles, great saves and decent goals. A few maligned Brentford players had their best games and in fact all 11 might have been man of the match. Great day out, great game this football. And the Cornish Pastie, re-heated I suspect a snip at 2.50£.
A rather atypical game. Crawley took a two goal lead shortly after half time, deserved, Met Police then battled away and controlled much of the second half, scoring a goal 10 minutes from time. In the last 10 minutes all hell broke loose. Met police hit the post with a shot, had shots cleared off the line, forced Paul Jones into two great saves, but just could not get the equalise they deserved. A very decent crowd too around 1500, compared to a normal crowd usually in the 120-150 region.
It has to be said that Met police are a good team and this is a nice club. I almost forgot to mention that 150 places separate these two sides, with Met Police playing in the Ryman Premier. Altogether a great day out and I will return.
A game that was billed as a 6 pointer and in the end the draw killed the hopes Brentford may have had of reaching the play-offs. This however takes their unbeaten run to 7 games, five wins followed by two goalless draws. Any Brentford fan being fair and rationale will agree that we are not in the top 6 best clubs in the division and that this team would be relegated immediately with very few points. A few weeks ago I wrote a rant saying that Uwe Rosler must go and I stand by my comments. Odd? Stupid? I stand by my comments because with a good manager we would be in the play-offs and would not be needing to go through this exercise of pretending we are good enough for promotion.
The game was a reasonable enough one and one that Notts County should have won 2-0 by half time. They missed two open goals and hit the bar with a great shot. Other than that not a lot happened apart from a Saunders free kick being headed off the line. Brentford played to their ability but hampered by having no serious strikers. Clinton Morrison cannot run, shoot, head, so his position in the team is maybe curious. An experiment that clearly has not worked as shown by Leon Legge being introduced as a second half substitute centre forward……..Some cruel wag at half time suggested that bringing on Simon Moore upfront would be an advantage…………
The reason why we have had a good run is down in part to three things, firstly some luck, secondly playing some woeful Lancashire teams ( Bury,Rochdale,Oldham) and lastly keeping a settled side. The roulette wheel that is Roslers picking machine must have broken 7 games ago. There is the essence of a decent team here but it takes 3 seasons to build a side and get out of this league. This maybe, just maybe, counts as the first of these. And this is assuming we buy two more strikers, minimum in addition to Stuart Dallas, that we keep Adam Forshaw and Jake Bidwell ( both of whom will do well at this level and give them a chance of moving upwards) and that we stop signing average midfield players, who are no better than what we have and keep them on the bench.
Man of the match? Sam Saunders for his work rate, his dead ball kicking was poor for him yesterday. I also remain unconvinced by Harlee Dean.
There are always defining moments in the season and today was one of those. Brentford are no better than they were last season at this time, and arguably worse. At that stage the crowd and team were solidly behind Nicky Forster. Today made me realise what a waste of time and money it is currently to watch Brentford. The perspective around this is that I used to go to all away games and often to work my work around where they were playing. Now I do not plan any more driving away games this season. Why? Well a consistent facet of Brentford this season has been that they have been beaten by every team with a greater work ethic, even when that team is technically inferior. Exampled by today. Yoevil are no Brazil but will probably survive relegation this season and seem to function well as a small club with crowds around 4000. Brentford took the lead early in the first half with a deflected free kick from Sam Saunders, Yoevil came out fast from the traps in the second half, scored a wonderful goal and then got the winner with a scrappy own goal 5 minutes from time. Unlucky? Maybe? got what they deserved ? Probably.
Team selection was wrong. Donaldson should not be playing. He has had a miserable season and looks out of sorts. McGinn did some running but his quality was very poor today. The midfield lacked the bite that maybe Bean might have given. Tactics were awful , hoof the ball and then hoof it again. Tactics never changed even when Yoevil clearly changed theirs. Uwe Rosler needs to depart. He is not and will not be the answer. Sure, it can wait till end of season but he seems unable to put together a consistent team, motivate them to play out of their skin and seems to have fallen out with players who could have played a part today. No sign of Bean or Weston. Why? Crowds are poor at Griffin Park for a reason. Results are awful and home peformances mostly dire.
I cannot help but think that Martin Allen would do a better job.
So in summary a waste of 4 hrs 30 mins driving, about 260 miles, costing £35 plus £19 to get in plus £3 programme plus 10£ food. Total waste = £67 and a day of my life. But I have decided that Uwe Rosler must depart Brentford.
Sam Saunders free kick on its way in
Standing and Watching
weather extremes before the game
Before today this season Brentford had played 27 games and had scored 33 goals. Not impressive and performances have not been scintillating. If one then excludes the first home game a 5-0 win over hapless Yoevil that comes down to 26 games and 28 goals. So before todays game most Bees fans would take scrappy 1-0 win. The reality was very different. From the word go it was clear that Wycombe were defensively the worst team seen at Griffin Park this season by a stretch. Brentford romped into a 3-0 lead by half time by playing really just average football. Decent running, passing and finishing in the box. Wycombe got a goal with almost the first touch of the second half, which some felt should have been disallowed for offside, including the linesman who had his flag up, but it seems overruled by the referee the goal stood. But Brentford carried on and in the end won easily with Gary Alexander scoring a decent hat-trick. his third goal a volley from an angle from a cross, needs to be viewed on BBC tonight. A decent bet on relegation for wycombe seems reasonable and a side bet that they will end up having conceded more goals than any other league 1 club is also on the cards. As we look tonight Wycombe are bottom having conceded 54 goals whereas Walsall who sit in the first place of safety 5th bottom have let in only 33 goals. Story told. One has to feel for Nikki Bull the ex-Bees keeper now at wycombe who posts on Twitter regularly. Tonight he reports being very low and shellshocked. The wycombe team and subs in fact included 5 ex-Bees, so maybe a learning to them.
Gary Alexander earlier this season with new headgear
As a long time Bees fan I do know realistically what to expect, usually nothing. But this season is something different. Brentford were beaten today comprehensively by a much better, motivated,stronger,agile and seemingly fitter side. If the result had been 7-0 one could not have complained. This is going to be a long season if everytime a side who wants to tackle and push and generally play physical football ( and do it well and mostly in the bounds of the laws) cones to Brentford, they will win. We have lost 3 games at home to similar sides, Tranmere, Preston and Huddersfield. In this league having players who cannot/will not tackle is a luxury. sad day . Streams of Bees fans were leaving at 70 minutes and maybe one might wonder why they did not go before. no-one today came out with any credit. No-one played well, it was only differing degress of badness. To compound matters I arrived back at Heathrow at 2.30 on a much delayed plane from Berlin, got picked up and kindly deposited at the ground, so to go to all this effort seems pointless. A very bad Brentford day.
We also seem to be doing our usual trick of accumulating average players who mainly have failed elsewhere and thats why they are out on loan. Take David Clarkson. Simply woeful. Please send him back to Bristol City tomorrow. Why sign Harry Forrester and not play him? We dont know how good he is because he has been on the bench all season. Who was the captain today? As in where was the captain? Oh and usual again ex-Bees players always score against us. Jordan Rhodes, whom I rate very highly and without doubt is at least a championship player scored 1-2 goals today.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 