Monday 6th March 2023: Premier League: Gtech Community Stadium: Brentford vs Fulham
Derby Day – The first match every fan looks for when the season’s fixture list is announced. There is no better game to attend than the showdown against your local rivals on your home patch and now it was Brentford’s turn. They had yet to face a true local rival on home ground and today was the day.
Revenge, that was what was on my mind as I took my seat. I had been unable to secure a ticket to see Brentford head to Craven Cottage, only for them to lose 3-2 to a 90th minute Mitrovic winner. That was the third game of the season when Fulham were just the newly promoted prawn sandwich brigade round the corner, so to lose against them then was particularly galling. Especially since it evened up the head to head record at 23 wins each.
Now both of us sat on the brink of Europe, Bees were on home turf and a win for the red army would see us close the gap on them to a single point with a game in hand. Revenge would be sweet.
So it would prove to be as Brentford tore into their visitors from the first whistle, despite the treacherous conditions under foot. Bryan Mbuemo had already fired a shot agonisingly over the bar before the hosts took the lead in the sixth minute through Ethan Pinnock, a central defender. A corner broke to him on the edge of the box and he rifled the ball through the forest of legs in front of him.
Deadlock broken and all I know was that the ball was in the net as I went ballistic, such is the effect of seeing your team open the scoring in a derby. Not as ballistic as the fans behind the goal to my right though, it took the stewards five minutes to clear the flare from the pitch and allow the action to get back underway.
Having taken the lead the quality of Brentford’s attacking play decreased massively. Christian Norgaard was the next to try his luck, but his effort from distance ballooned into row ZZ. It didn’t help matters for the hosts that Fulham had resorted to some seriously cynical tackles to break up play.
Eventually the lack of end product and the rash tackles from Fulham started to curtail the Bee’s momentum. By the half hour mark the visitors had established a firm foothold in the match and were starting to put together some genuinely threating forays forward of their own.
The visitors equaliser arrived from the boot of their super-sub Manor Solomon, in from the start today, with just over 5 minutes of the first half remaining. Fulham were gifted a dubious freekick within striking distance of goal and when the strike cannoned off the bar Solomon was there, somehow unmarked, to smash the ball home.
Infuriated is far too docile a word to describe the feeling coursing through my soul at this point. To go in level at half-time when we had bossed the majority of the play would at least give the players motivation for the second half.
Frustration proved to be the perfect motivation as the Bees burst out of the traps once more, but this time there were a full 8 minutes between kick-off and the establishment of a home lead. We could not have wished for a kinder gift from the prawn sandwich brigade than the melee which led to the awarding of the penalty. Our attack was headed down a blind alley in the box when Fulham’s defence decided to implode and bundle our striker to the ground.
Ivan Toney simply does not miss penalties and so it proved to be again. He stroked this one into the bottom right corner of the goal. Sure Bernd Leno guessed the right way but even a keeper of his calibre stood no chance against such a sumptuous strike.
Once the flare had been cleared this time Brentford were able to maintain their momentum, even with the ref applying liberal use of the whistle, and looked like the only team capable of scoring for the rest of the half. The home defence were keeping Mitrovic and Willian satisfyingly silent.
It took until the 85th minute for the hosts to secure the 3 points with their third goal of the game. Mathias Jensen, much maligned by certain sections of the home fans for being always one pass short of great, was the man who put the seal on this derby day destruction. The set up was all Kevin Shade, on the pitch for just 10 minutes, who shimmied his way down the right wing, beating opponent after opponent, before cutting the ball back to the waiting Jensen. From there the midfield maestro simply had to direct it into the bottom corner and victory was assured.
With the 3 points now firmly in the bag Brentford relaxed for the first time in the half. In fact they relaxed so much that Thomas Frank decided to change formation to a 5-2-3 to see out the 8 minutes of added time. Pontus Jansson returned to action for the first time in months, but perhaps he was a little rusty as Fulham were able to grab a consolation second in added time.
A simple ball over the top caught the hosts defence comatose and the recently introduced Carlos Vinicius was able to nip in to tap the ball past David Raya. It was only his second ever goal for Fulham but unfortunately for him it was not the second equaliser.
Brentford secured revenge over their local rivals for their early season humiliation and restored their lead in the head-to-head battle. Now the only thing left to do is beat them to European Qualification by the end of May. With a 12-game unbeaten run in and now just a point behind them we have an excellent chance of achieving this goal.
Come On You Bees
The Football tourist 