Nine days ago the Wolves were in town and left with all 3 points having inflicted a 4-1 defeat on their hosts. Now they were back for a cup game and hoping for a similar result against a Brentford team that had lost 3-1 away at Crystal Palace in the meantime.
Any hope of a repeat result were extinguished after 8 minutes as the Old Gold’s number 8, Joao Gomes, was shown a straight red for a late tackle on Christian Norgaard as the Dane tried to clear the hosts’ lines.
The away fans made their displeasure at this decision abundantly clear, but when you send a player limping off the pitch supported by two physios because they’re unable to put any weight on their right leg you have to accept some punishment for your actions.
With a player advantage for more than 80 minutes and filled with a fire to get revenge for last week’s humiliation most people would assume that the hosts would turn up the pressure, break through and fill their boots with goals. Most people would be forgetting that this is a Brentford team stuck in a rut of 5 losses in a row and a December to forget.
Since the league humiliation at the hands of today’s visitors they had also lost Frank Onyeka and Yoane Wissa to AFCON and Saman Ghoddos to the Asian Cup. Added to the bulging treatment room and the team selection dilemma for Thomas Frank has almost completely evaporated, it’s simply become ‘the fit one’s start’.
For this match that meant the return of Josh DaSilva but also Zanka, Mads Roerslev, Mikel Damsgaard and Keane Lewis-Potter, none of who could be counted as first team regulars with a fully fit squad at our disposal.
The other reason it took till the 41st minute for Brentford to make their advantage count, Neil Maupay stroking home through a forest of legs from 10 yards, was that until then all the hosts build up play had been infuriatingly ponderous.
It felt as though the players were taking the result for granted and just figured all they had to do was wait for the goals to come. When even getting the opener couldn’t force the floodgates open and given Brentford’s incredible ability to throw away leads this season I expected what came next.
Wolves equaliser came in the 63rd minute and whilst the exquisite curler from Tommy Doyle was truly exceptional, the fact that he was able to drift into acres of space on the edge of the box was just plain embarrassing from the home team’s perspective. To say many fans were frustrated to see him given the same space from the next 3 corners would be to dramatically undersell the position.
Having seen the ease with which the equaliser was created and with the results of recent weeks in mind it now seemed just a matter of waiting for the Bee’s natural fragility to shine through as the Midlander’s 10 men tore us them to shreds.
That this didn’t happen was mostly down to a lack of attacking ambition from a visiting team willing to settle for a replay that they had spent most of the game thinking was as unobtainable as a return trip to Jupiter. If they had tried their luck a little more then Doyle could have delivered the victory with his second wonder goal as he continued to be left unmarked in the same location his goal came from.
My joy at seeing my beloved Bees survive till the final whistle with scores level and our name in the hat for the next round was tempered somewhat not only by losing Captain Norgaard to injury but also by seeing Mathias Jensen, our creative metronome, join him in heading to the treatment table.
He had taken the armband from Norgaard and so to see him trudge off, with the physios in close attendance, less than 20 minutes from the end of proceedings was gut wrenching. Having seen him return from injury not so long ago it was hellish to see him limping down the tunnel again. It looked like just a knock for him and with 11 days until the replay I hope he has shaken it off in time to feature again in that one.
Worst case scenario he has to be back for Ivan Toney’s return on the 20th, as without his creation and incisive passes from midfield there may be no chances for our talisman to rifle home. Without either of Aaron Hickey or Rico Henry, both long term members of the training ground hospital team, to put it on a plate with delicious crosses from the wings our chance creation rests squarely on Jensen’s shoulders. If he is not back fit soon then our form will continue to drop off a cliff.
Our in-house hospital drama is such a joke among home fans that a lady in the row in-front of me said “we should just build a hospital at the training ground” and it honestly sounds like a good plan. At times this season it has felt like our players are made of glass and held together with no more than spit and polish.
Such fragility in our team has to be stamped out somehow and I trust Thomas Frank to find the solution. If he can find the special sauce to finally break our play-off hoo-doo then he can certainly get us back to a fully fit squad.
In the meantime though we could do with bringing in an experienced midfield metronome to guide all our green players through difficult periods of games, so that in future they don’t become so fragile when a 10-man team equalises with them through a worldie.
If the fragile Bees win the replay it will be an away game at the Baggies in the 4th round.
The Football tourist 