As 2023 ends with Brentford just 4 points and 2 places above the relegation zone and in the midst of a run that has seen them win just once in their last 7 games, I am taking us back to the beginning of November as the Bees topped off a hat-trick of successive wins with a tremendous comeback victory on November 4th.
On the receiving end of this comeback were a Ham United team that had not won in their last 6 league games. It was the visitors who started out stronger, but went behind after 10 minutes as Neil Maupay scored his first goal of his second spell with a simple 5-yard header past a stranded Alphonse Areola.
The Hammer’s ruled the rest of the half both in terms of possession and chances. When goals from Mohammed Kudus and Jarod Bowen had given them the lead before the half hour mark it looked like they would be taking all 3 points back East. Especially as every time the hosts made it into the final third they suffered from collective brain failure.
There were times in the first half where Brentford had breaks that saw them one-on-one with the keeper and the striker dithering on the ball as he looked for a teammate to lay it off too. Had it not been for their failure to make the right decision at the crucial moment we could have equalised on the break a fair few times as Onyeka, Wissa and Norgaard spurned glorious chances.
The biggest miss of the half though went to the visitors as Michail Antonio and Said Benrahma conspired to get in each other’s way and shank the ball wide from a yard out, having been found unmarked by a raking Bowen cross. It looked far easier to score than miss and if either of them had buried it there would have been no way back for the hosts, but as it was they would take full advantage of this incredible let-off.
The Bees emerged for the second half with a new fire in their bellies and a new keeper between the sticks. Mark Flekken had taken a knock late in the first half and with a growing injury list Thomas Frank was taking no chances with his first choice keeper.
Having come out with much more purpose since half time it took just 8 minutes for the hosts to draw level as a short corner from the right bore fruit. Bryan Mbuemo fired a cross across the 6-yard box and, under immense pressure from Nathan Collins, it was Konstantinos Mavropanos who nodded home into his own net.
With their belief renewed and the equaliser giving them a spring in their step it took till the hour mark for the visitors to get their first sustained possession of the half. The Bees were way too in the zone to let them back into this match now though and in the 69th minute they scored the winner.
This time it was a cross from Mathias Jensen that picked out Collins unmarked at the back post and he made no mistake to hammer it home. Having been the pressure man for the own goal it felt only fair that he was now on the scoresheet in his own right.
In a second half display that blew our visitors out of the water my only inkling of what was to come is that I noted the lack of game-changers on the bench and that ‘if we get many more injuries we might be in trouble’.
The injuries have continued to pile up since and with our bare-bones squad going to be further exposed in the coming weeks as Frank Onyeka and Yoane Wissa, both first-team regulars, head to Cameroon for AFCON 2023 in January the only bright spot on the horizon is the return of Ivan Toney. He has served his ban and now we hope he will score the goals to fire us back up the table.
Once the squad are all fully fit again and playing together regularly we have a team that is capable of pushing for Europe, but take a few first-teamers away from us and we look shaky.
Even with Toney’s return and our next league match not being till January 20th it is clear that we need reinforcements in the transfer window. Top of my list is a couple of decent full-backs to give us more width and an attacking threat from deep, the importance of both Rico Henry (out for the season with a knee injury) and Aaron Hickey has been underlined by just how much we have struggled without them.
We will need the fighting spirit we showed in this comeback against the Hammers and our home fans at the Gtech fortress to prevent this current run of ‘form’ dragging us down into the sinking area. We won once outside London in 2023 and unless this changes it is our home form that will keep us up.
Make no mistake about it, I still believe that the Bees will be safe long before the final run-in and I trust wholeheartedly in Thomas Frank’s leadership to get us to that point but without clearing our treatment table and bringing in some back up it will be far harder than it need be.
DISCLAIMER: This blog has been written after the third consecutive 10-hour shift in a row, with 3 more back to back such shifts to go, about a game that I attended over 2 months ago. I have used my voice notes from the day itself, alongside watching match highlights packages, to write this blog.
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