Broken Hammers

Saturday 14th May 2023: Premier League: Gtech Community Stadium: Brentford vs West Ham United

Having beaten AZ Alkmaar 2-1 in the 1st leg of the Europa Conference semi-final less than 72 hours ago Hammer’s fans made the short trip to west London rivals Brentford in extremely high spirits.

They left with their spirits significantly lowered having seen their boys comprehensively beaten by a Brentford team responding in the greatest fashion imaginable to their 1-0 defeat at Anfield on Coronation Day.

As soon as Mathias Jensen started the afternoon’s proceedings it was clear that there was only one team winning today and it wasn’t the Irons. The Bees took just 48 seconds to create their first presentable chance of the afternoon’s torrent; Rico Henry releasing Kevin Shade down the left channel, but he overran the ball and it trickled into Lucasz Fabianski’s grateful grasp.

Brentford should have broken the deadlock twice more within the opening 10 minutes; with first Mikkel Damsgaard flicking a free header wide of the right stick from the centre of the 6 yard box and then Henry choosing to slide the ball laterally across to the penalty spot when he had Shade, Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbuemo all running clear in the area and screaming for a cross to be flashed across the face. If the cross had been forthcoming it would have provided a simple tap-in for whichever attacker made first contact.

No matter though as Mbuemo would take it upon himself to unleash a right-footed rifle shot across the despairing dive of Fabianski to set the Bee’s on their way to a comfortable victory as the match clock struck 20.

Having taken the lead the Host’s settled in to weather the expected storm of the hammers, but it never came and the game ticked past the half hour mark with a 10 minute passage of play where neither team threatened to add to the scoreline. West Ham were looking especially toothless without their main marksman Michail Antonio, out with a calf issue picked up in the midweek win.

Anyone who took this cessation of hostilities as a sign that all the sting had gone out of the hosts without Ivan Toney in their matchday squad, were soon to be proven sadly and seriously mistaken.

Release The Swarm

I have been attending Brentford matches since the 2014-15 season and cannot recall a more ferocious show of attacking prowess from the Bees as was seen in the final 10 minutes of the first half today. How it yielded just the one paltry goal is anyone’s guess.

Wissa was the first to go agonisingly close to doubling the west Londoner’s lead as his powerful first time shot from the penalty spot in the 34th minute, having been teed up by Aaron Hickey, required Fabianski to spray himself low to get a strong right hand to the ball and pouch it to prevent a certain goal.

Shade was next to try his luck in the 37th minute as he spun on a dime to send the ball careening inches wide of the left post, having shimmied his way clear of his marker to create the yard of space for the shot. He tried to make up for this miss in the 4 minutes added on to the end of the half, but this time his crabbing technique was less successful and eventually he had to lay it off for Hickey to flash just past the right upright.

I have no idea who had any of the shots that went flying towards goal in the melee a long throw from Jensen caused in the 40th minute. The original header flicked towards the far corner of the net came was Shade’s but once Fabianski had blocked this down into the forest of legs chaos ensued. There were at least 3 shots fired in from point blank range but each was blocked on the line by the desperate defence.

After witnessing us fail to score then I started to become convinced that the Hammer’s had constructed a forcefield around their goal. If such a thing had existed, it lasted all of 2 minutes before another Jensen long throw evaporated it. When Ben Mee flicked the ball on at the near post Wissa was the only man alive to the danger in the 6 yard box and he poked it home to double the hosts lead. Cue bedlam in the home stands.

Profligacy Un-Punished

Brentford were extremely unlucky to have opened up just a 2-goal advantage over their visitors from the East of the city at half-time and the only worry I had at the break was whether the Hammers would re-group during the interval and punish their host’s profligacy with a hatful of second half goals. I needn’t have worried.

Even the introduction of Declan Rice and ex-bee Said Benrahma, to rapturous applause from all corners of the ground, on the hour mark did little to aid the visitor’s cause. Despite a mini revival over the next 5 minutes that save David Raya make his first save of the match, the visitors never truly looked likely to force their way back into the match.

The Hammer’s did have the ball in the net in the 67th minute only for a VAR check to rule it out for a handball by Divin Mubama, an 18 year-old striker introduced to the fray by Moyes alongside Rice and Benrahma.

The disallowed goal was the high point of a dismal afternoon for a Hammer’s team being brought crashing down to earth by their high flying neighbours.

Neighbours who failed to add to their goal tally despite a heaping helping of presentable chances falling their way throughout the second half. Mee and Mbuemo both missed the target with free headers from within the box.

Damsgaard and Frank Onyeka were amongst the slew of home players to fail to convert decent opportunites, with the former somehow contriving to hoof the ball over the bar from a couple of yards out just after the hour mark.

The Irons were unable to pounce on these missed chances to steal the point they needed from the match to mathematically secure their safety; whilst 3 points for the hosts ensures that they will finish the season in the top 10. Second season syndrome be damned.

In his post match interviews Brentford head coach Thomas Frank described the result as “The most convincing 2-0 win I have seen in a long, long time”. Having been in the stands today I can confirm he is right. It could easily have been 6 or 7-0.