Looking at Brentford’s results and performances from orbit, one win a piece every month since November, it certainly looks like we are in an unescapable downwards spiral.
Once you zoom in a little though the signs we may just be turning the corner are there.
The days of collapses where one goal for the opposition causes all our plans to go to pot are done. Wolves and Crystal Palace both took us to the cleaners last month, but when we have conceded in January we have kept ourselves in the match and invariably been able to keep things together enough to score another goal.
Our last 3 games have all ended 3-2 and in each one we have scored after our opponents have hit one past us. This huge improvement in the mental strength of the team is a huge positive for us and if Thomas Frank can keep this change going as crucial players return from injury and international duty then we will be set well for the rest of the season.
The greatest news for us Brentford fans is that this improvement in mental fortitude began before the return of the Prodigal Son, Ivan Toney.
Yes, we lost the last game before his return but even in that match at Molineux we managed to pull ourselves back into the lead after the hosts had pulled themselves level. Okay, so we did lose that one in extra time but we also managed to take it that far and only lost to a controversial, and extremely soft, penalty.
Then Toney returned for the Forest game and things really started looking up.
The Genius Takes Centre Stage Again
Leaving aside the idiotic defending to allow Danilo to open Forest’s account, the transformation when Toney took charge of proceedings with his incredible free-kick and the way he drives standards throughout the team was amazing.
With Ivan back and staying with us until at least the end of the season the standards throughout the team will continue to rise and rise, even Mads Roerslev played well against Forest, and results will follow.
Ethan Pinnock, Ben Mee and Kristoffer Ajer have all returned to shore up the defence. With 8 goals conceded in the last 3 games it is clear they have a long way to go but with each game they play together the wall will toughen up. Once their understanding comes back the days of conceding 3 goals a game we will start moving back up the table.
Even better news is that the City game tonight will be our last game without our AFCON and Asian Cup players. The return of Frank Onyeka, Yoane Wissa and Saman Ghoddos from their international duties, hopefully with some trophies in toe, will bring further steel to our attack.
Once they return we will be back to an almost fully fit squad, almost….
With this joyous accomplishment behind us we can push on with the job of turning 6 losses in our last 7 into a much better run and surging further clear of the relegation zone than our current 3 point ‘cushion’
A Team United To Turn This Around
Starting tonight we have 17 matches to turn this season around and as things start going our way again I have complete faith that we will manage to not only secure our top flight status for a 4th season running, but also push into the top half of the table.
We had a mid season spell like this in our first Premier League season and we managed to turn that around and we will do it again!!!
Most people doing 60hour weeks with shifts all over the place would have used their first day off in 10 days to rest and recuperate.
Football fans are not most people and so it was that yesterday afternoon I found myself on a train to Wolverhampton to watch my team take on the Wolves at their den.
The sheer stupidity of this decision is hard to overstate. Not only could Brentford not defeat the evening’s opponents with a player advantage for 80 minutes of the original tie, but they had not won a game outside London since March last year and I had a 10 hour shift today starting at 6am.
Oh, and the last train back north was timed so that if the match went to extra time I would have to leave them playing to run for it. Such is my loyalty to my beloved Bees that despite all these factors I still made my way to Molineux.
Staring Down The Wolf
As expected it was the hosts that were on top from the first minute as they pushed forward in waves, shoving the Bee’s deeper and deeper towards their own penalty area. Then one of those magical moments that every football fan knows well occurred….
After being battered for the first 11 minutes of the match and utterly against the run of play, to the extent I uttered the phrase ‘Where the F*** did that come from?’ in my Audio notes.
Brentford took the lead!!
Quite how we scored I will probably never know as shock overtook me for a good 30seconds after Nathan Collins smuggled it home.
Brentford were leading away from London, but even as ‘How S*** must you be, were winning away’ rung around the stand around me all I could think was ‘How long can we hold onto this?’.
The answer was 14 minutes, that’s how long we could hold out under the onslaught even with both Ben Mee and Kristoffer Ajer returning from injury to bolster the back line.
After numerous let-offs the hosts it was a simple break down the left that gave them the equaliser they thoroughly deserved. When the cross was curled across to the back post Nelson Semedo snaffled it home at the second time of asking, his first shot having rebounded back to him off the sprawling Thomas Strakovsha.
A brilliant display of last ditch-defending got us to half-time with the scores still level, but make no mistake the pack of Wolves had been leagues ahead of their visitors all half.
Only the scoresheet that did not reflect their dominance of proceedings.
Brentford had failed to offer much to the first half proceedings, apart from the goal and they came out for the second half determined to make up for that dour first half display.
It took them just 8 minutes of the half for the visitors to take the lead for the third time across the two ties and as in the first tie it was Neil Maupay who provided the finishing touch to a lovely team move down the left.
The ball was flashed into the centre and as Josh DaSilva failed to bring it under control Maupay pounced to poke it home and, after a torturous VAR wait, Brentford once again lead the match.
This time the lead would stick for longer, but not by much….
It took 23 minutes for the Old Gold to draw level once again and this time their equaliser came through the home-town hero Nathan Fraser, who is just 18years old and had been bought on just minutes before, who equalised with his first touch.
Fraser would have dreamt of a moment like this the night before the match, but watching him rifle home from point blank range was a soul crushing punch in the gut for those away fans who had made the doomed journey to support our heroes. Such is the cost of loyalty when you trust in it against every shred of common sense in your soul.
We were lucky to make it to the final whistle with the scores still even, but they would not stay so in extra time.
I was slipping into a deep sleep on the train back north when Wolves won it from the penalty spot in the 105th minute, but I have since seen the ‘incident’ that led to the penalty on highlights packages.
All I have to say about it is that I’m sure I’ve seen softer penalties, but I can’t remember when…’
Though perhaps it was Karma for how the first tie and the first half of this replay had gone as Wolves were definitely the better team over the 120 minutes I saw.
When you let the lead slip through your fingers three times you don’t really deserve to go though and I hope the home fans enjoy their Black Country Derby at the Hawthorns next Sunday.
The best summing up of Brentford in this Third Round tie came from Thomas Frank himself in the programme for this match.
“When you play 11 against 10 for 80 minutes, you’ve got to win, end of discussion”
The Truth Hurts
As for where Brentford go from here it’s simple. We go back to London and regroup for Saturday as IVAN TONEY RETURNS FROM HIS BAN.
Nottingham Forest will be our opponents for that match and, despite last night’s display, I will be in the home fans cheering on my beloved Bees, mostly to witness the return of the prodigal son
Ten days ago, my last day off, I headed south of the Thames to support the ultimate underdogs in their fight against a team from two divisions above them in the FA Cup 3rd round.
In the last 2 rounds AFC Wimbledon had managed a high-five of goals of goals, but before that lulls you into a false sense of Security about how easy this tie would be for them it’s worth noting that Cheltenham Town and Ramsgate were nowhere near the standards of their next opponents.
Ipswich Town have spent the season so far sitting comfortably in the Championship promotion places and looking destined to return to the top domestic table next season. The Wombles have faced many challenges since 2001, but in the Tractor Boys they faced their hardest opposition in years.
View From The Seat
The True Dons took to this test brilliantly, giving as good as they got in the early midfield battle, but then they gave away a corner in the 7th minute and things started to go wrong.
A simple ball in was headed away in the centre where it fell to the feet of Nathan Broadhead unmarked on the edge of the D. His shot wasn’t great but as it ricocheted through the forest of legs it’s flight bamboozled Alex Bass in the Dons’ goal opening the scoring for the visitors.
Wimbledon refused to be beaten by this though as they created an opening 3 minutes later, it ultimately led to nothing of note for the hosts, but Ipswich knew they were in for a battle at least.
If that hadn’t tipped them off they certainly couldn’t miss the next indication, the hosts were level 10 minutes after going behind. Jake Reeves, the host’s captain, was the man who fired home the equaliser from the penalty spot, smashing it above the keeper’s dive.
The penalty was a gift for the hosts, as a defender dragged down a Don a the back post as the ball was swung in from a corner. Reeves took full advantage of this gift and with this confidence boost behind them the hosts pushed on in search of a second.
Aron Sasu had the opportunity a minute later when he was released on the right wing, but without any support his one-on-one with Christian Walton was quickly taken from him by some excellent last ditch defending by Freddie Ladapo.
The next five minutes of the match belonged to The Dons’ Harry Pell as he went from failing to finish off a flowing move down the left, to clipping the heels of Sam Morsy as the Tractor Boy’s captain tried to break. From being close to giving his team the lead to collecting a yellow card, it was a minute to forget for the Don’s number 8.
As the game barrelled towards half-time the host’s not only had opposition under control, but had so many chances to take the lead that I couldn’t list them all. The only problem for the Wombles was that they failed to take advantage of any of them.
Then things went wrong in the last 10 of the half.
Alex Pearce had to be withdrawn due to injury and replaced by Paul Kalambayi, who took a little time to warm-up to the speed of the game. Cameron Humphreys was able to give him the run around as he attacked at will down the right for the next 5 minutes and this period of play was capped off by a goal.
Unfortunately for the home fans it went to the visitors as Humphreys took advantage of his new found freedom to whip a ball into the box where Axel Tuanzebe to nod home from point blank range.
Keep Him Pinned Lads
Despite suffering this sucker punch just before half-time Wimbledon were far from out of it as they emerged for the second half. To any non-football fan dragged along to the match it would not have been clear which was the higher ranked team.
The first 12 minutes of the half were so difficult for the visitors, with Harry Pell and Connor Lemonheigh-Evans both spurning glorious chances to bring the scores level again, that Kieran McKenna felt it necessary to shuffle his pack.
Bringing on new signing Jeremy Sarmiento for Freddie Ladapo may have worked for the visitors, but the ref decided we didn’t need to find out.
With the game on a knife’s edge Pell was running back to help cover an Ipswich attack and then the linesman’s flag was waved and seconds later he was sent off for a second yellow card.
Even with 10 days distance from the incident I cannot understand what the ref was thinking with this red card, not a single visitor was even appealing for the second ‘foul’, with this single action taking any tension out of the match.
I had never seen a player sent off for two yellow card offences and whilst it wasn’t as glaringly stupid a decision as Calvert-Lewin’s dismissal 2 days earlier it still felt like an insane call.
Where’d The Ball Go?
Going down to 10 effectively robbed the Dons of any chance to so much as force a replay they refused to collapse.
It took Ipswich a full 20 minutes to make use of their man advantage to get the ball in the net, with Luke Woolfenden snuffling it home from close range as a corner got flicked on to him at the back post.
Though this one was struck off for offside the visitors would eventually make it 3-1 but it would take them till the dying seconds of the game to make this happen. The Don’s refused to die in 2001 and despite the ref’s attempt to kneecap them they refused to do so here either.
They fought to the end but when Jack Taylor tapped home a flowing break down the right any final hope was finally extinguished, though no home fan could leave disappointed with the Don’s performance or spirit.
AFC Wimbledon had fought till the end and shown the whole of English football that no-one scares them. If they can continue performances like this in League Two they will join their visitors in achieving promotion.
The Defeated Warriors Salute Their Fans
The first 60 minutes of this match were a gargantuan tussle between two evenly matched and motivated teams of warriors.
Then the game was ruined and it will be Ipswich hosting 6th tier Maidstone United, the lowest ranked team left by far, in the 4th round next weekend. With such an easy tie falling into their laps it’s fair to say that Ipswich will be expecting to heading to round 5, just one round from the Quarter-finals.
For Don’s fans that draw makes this result even harder to swallow.
A easily reachable quarter-final berth has been ripped from their grasp by one ridiculous decision. They have faced down ridiculous decision before though and come back stronger, expect them to do so again next season.
Stuck In The Third Round, Till Next Year
Following AFC Wimbledon’s FA Cup adventure this season has been a joy and I wish them the best of luck for their promotion push this season.
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.
United In The Struggle To Survive
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.
How Will They Line Up For The Replay?
If the fragile Bees win the replay it will be an away game at the Baggies in the 4th round.
In a few days time I will be watching on at Plough Lane as League Two AFC Wimbledon play host to the mighty Ipswich Town, who lie 2nd in the Championship, in the FA Cup 3rd round.
The Dons will be staring that game as massive underdogs, so for now lets go back a month and a round to a match where the Don’s were huge favourites against their 8th tier visitors, Ramsgate Town.
Ramsgate hail from Kent, just 4 miles from rivals Margate, and ply their amateur trade in the Isthmian League South East Division alongside Cray Valley Paper Mills.
The Millers were destroyed by Charlton in a home replay in the 1st round, but they managed a creditable draw in the away tie. Could their league rivals do something similar away to the Dons? They had already beaten 6 opponents on their way to the 2nd round.
Half of their victims were higher league opposition, though none were members of the exclusive 92.
For the Don’s part they had to take on League One opposition to get here, in the shape of struggling Cheltenham Town, which they managed with aplomb scoring 5 on the way to a heartening 5-1 win.
With the allure of a home tie against Ipswich already on the table before kick-off neither team was likely to lack motivation and one team came charging out the traps.
Pleasantries Before Kick-off
The hosts were wombling into the lead just 8 minutes into the match, but it would have been 30 seconds earlier if Connor Lemonheigh-Evans hadn’t spurned a free-header from 4 yards out as he found space to meet a tantalising freekick swung straight too him.
Perhaps such a glaring miss had the visitors feeling sorry for their hosts as it was from the goal kick that the Rams handed the Dons their opening goal on a silver platter.
Passing it round at the back may work for some teams, but pumping it long may have been wiser against a team 4 divisions above you.
The defenders dithered on the ball, had their pockets picked and seconds later Jake Reeves, the Don’s captain, was stroking it to the left of the keeper to get the scoreboard moving. It was a cultured finish from Reeves, but he really shouldn’t have been handed such a glorious opportunity.
Despite the huge frustration this must have caused Ben Smith, Ramsgate’s manager, he could at least take a crumb of comfort from the fact that this disaster didn’t lead to an immediate deluge of goals for the hosts.
Tom Hadler, the Ram’s keeper, was probably very grateful it’s arrival was not imminent but more goals would come the host’s way soon enough.
Ramsgate continued to hold out against the swaggering hosts for a full 18 minutes after the opener before the Dons doubled their advantage. They even showed some attacking flair, with a lot of joy down the wings, but having failed to truly test Alex Bass, between the Don’s sticks, they were hit with the second punch.
Wimbledon’s second goal was no thing of beauty, but unlike their first it came from their own endeavours at least. Jack Currie carved out space for himself on the wing and then looped in a cross that swerved in the air and looked to be dipping under the bar.
Hadler did a great job of following it’s flight and clawed it out from under his own bar only to see it drop to the head of Ali Al-Hamadi 3 yards out, who needed no second invitation to nod it home.
The hosts now had their tails well and truly up and they peppered the away goal with shots, only Hadler’s excellent display kept them from being 3 or 4 up before half an hour had elapsed. Eventually though the pressure of their concerted attacks told and they were 3-0 up before half time.
The worst part about the host’s third for Ramsgate is that it came mere seconds after they wasted a glorious chance to get one back. Having survived the scare the Dons broke upfield at speed.
The ball was sprayed out to Al-Hamadi, who surged into the penalty area. He faced Hadler at the keeper’s near post but when the save was made the ball dropped to Josh Neufville, who slotted it home through a forest of legs from 8 yards out.
Half-time View of Plough Lane
There were no changes to either team’s personnel at half time, so Don’s decided that they would just continue their utter domination of proceedings and it can’t have come as a shock to many within the ground when they were leading 5-0 less than 10 minutes after the restart.
It took less than 120 seconds of the half for Lemonheigh-Evans to atone for his first half miss by providing the Wombles with their 4th goal. A simple through ball reached him in the box, he turned his man and fired low across the keeper’s body. The shot lacked any true power on it but for once Hadler misjudged it’s path as it squirmed under his dive before nestling in the net behind him.
It took less than 5 minutes for the Don’s to reach 5 goals in the game, as Al-Hamadi completed his long-threatened brace. This one was the second that came from a defensive mistake from the visitors. This time an errant pass at the back landed at the feet of a player in blue. From there all it took was one pass to bypass the rest of the defence before Al-Hamadi could slide it home.
Having reached 5 goals against a team that were now clearly out for the count the Wombles were wombling so freely that they decided to spare their visitors any further scoresheet humiliation.
When Johnnie Jackson removed his brace man just after the hour mark it became abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to continue to risk his best player on the park any longer. He has a promotion push in the league to consider after all.
Despite seeing any hopes of their impressive cup run continuing and the tantalising prize of a home tie with Ipswich Town slipping speedily away the 1,400 travelling fans continued their raucous support all the way to the final whistle. They were even cheering all the way through an academic seven minutes of added time at the end of the 90.
Having been Rams to the slaughter in this one it is back to regular 8th-tier football for the part-timers from Kent, whilst the Wombles of Wimbledon Womble freely into the 3rd round.
In that 3rd round match, kicking off at lunchtime today, they will take on the Ramsgate role of massive underdogs.
As I travel on the tube Plough Lane all I’m hoping for is that I’m not heading to see some slaughtered Wombles.
I’ve been to every round of the FA Cup so far this season without witnessing an upset.
Today would be the perfect day to change that.
Wombling Free, but is it Uncle Bulgaria or Tobermory?
After 6 back to back 10hour work days over new year my days off have landed at exactly the right time, FA Cup 3rd round weekend.
This is the stage that every amateur side has been working towards for months. Where fans dream of getting the chance to cut one of the big boys down to size…. So obviously my first match of the weekend is an all Premier League affair between Bees and Wolves.
Wolverhampton Wanderers will be travelling south hoping for another big score against hosts that they doled out a simple 4-1 battering to just 9 days ago in the league. Brentford will be out to exact revenge for that defeat and with Fulham kicking off just 15 minutes later, against Championship bottom-feeders Rotherham United, it would be indescribably excellent if we could be winning as they slipped to defeat.
Yesterday and today all the games are being played in London and it’s not till Saturday that the 3rd Round goes truly national.
Much of the talk about the day is focused on the Tyne-Wear derby, especially with the spectacular own goal scored by the Sunderland staff in recent days.
Quite how anyone at the club thought that painting your deadly rivals slogans inside the stadium would be a good idea is beyond me. Did they not understand just how offensive their own fans would find this vandalism?
Whilst an upset for the hosts there would hardly be a shock, with how well Sunderland are doing in the league and Newcastle’s well documented injury crisis still in full swing, it would be a truly seismic shock if any of the non-league quarter made it to the 4th Round.
Chesterfield will be back in the 92 next season, but for now they are the best hope for those hoping for a non-league representative in the next round. Not only are they in scintillating form atop the non-league pyramid, but when they arrive at Hertfordshire’s Vicarage Road they will be taking on a Watford team that haven’t won at home since November 28th.
Aldershot Town will come into their Sunday trip to the Midlands riding high off the back of their brilliant away form in this competition so far this season. Starting off by securing an historic 7-4 victory away at Swindon Town in the first round they followed it up with a brilliant replay victory at Stockport Country.
Both of those victims ply their trade in League 2 and the step up to facing a West Bromwich Albion team may be a step too far for them, especially since the Hawthorns is a fortress where the Baggies have lost just once since the start of September. It looks like this will be a step to far for The Shots, but if the National Leaguers can force a replay then all bets are off.
Eastleigh, the lowest ranked of the National League teams, face a far less daunting challenge as they head across the border to Wales. Facing off against a Newport County team that are just 16 places above them in the pyramid certainly seems like a simple assignment for the Hampshire lot. Particularly so as Newport have won just once in the month since overcoming Barnet, also of the National League, in the last round of the cup.
Maidstone Untied are the last representatives of the 6th-tier left and the lowest ranked team to make it to the 3rd round. Their reward for this success is a home tie against third tier Stevenage and whilst this may not be the glamour tie that many of their fans had in mind it is eminently winnable.
As a Barrow team pushing for automatic promotion from League 2 found out, they can be lethal with the partisan backing of the 4,200 strong Gallagher Stadium behind them and if Bivesh Gurung can pull another worldie out of his back pocket then there is every chance that they will be in the hat on Monday.
I will be following all that action with baited breath, but first I’ll be spending my Saturday lunchtime in South London. Having seen the Dons slaughter some 8th-tier Rams in the last round, preventing a huge upset, I will be hoping to see them create an upset of their own as the Tractor Boys come to visit.
Ipswich have been having a wonderful season in the Championship and look likely to be following Leicester City up to the top table next season. However, they have failed to win any of their last 5 matches and combined with an expected raft of changes there is hope for The True Dons to continue an excellent run of form that has seen them lose just once since the start of December.
I will be hoping for all these underdog stories to come true, but whatever team you’re cheering on this weekend I just hope that they’re not on the receiving end of any decisions as insultingly ridiculous as Dominic Calvin-Lewis’ red card at Selhurst Park yesterday.
Even the commentator said “if that’s a red card, the game is gone” and you would be hard pressed to find any fan who genuinely disagrees.
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.
Plotting The Comeback
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.
Celebrating Three Wins In A Row
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.
HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL MAY 2024 BRING YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED
That I have taken so long to write another blog, since my Bobby Charlton memorial, is down to one major reason… the last couple of games I went to were Brentford away games that took the Bees outside of London.
Away from their home city the Bees are nothing short of abysmal. That didn’t stop me following them all outside of their hive twice in 4 days, on the 6th and the 9th of December.
First up was a trip to the south coast and high flying Brighton’s Amex stadium. The Seagulls are soaring at the moment and recently finished top of their Europa League group, but at kick-off they were only 3 points above Brentford.
Combine this with the fact that Bee’s last win outside London came on the south coast and I headed down south with optimism surging through my soul.
It quickly became clear that this may have been foolish though as Brighton dominated play from the first second of the match. They dominated the first 25 minutes so thoroughly that they were caught so cold when the visitors finally broke out of their half that when Vitaly Janelt charged into their box all they could do was hack him down.
From the resultant penalty Bryan Mbuemo sent Jason Steele the wrong way to stroke the ball home and send all of us in the away seats into ecstasy, we had played dreadfully so far but now we were leading, the only question was could this lead last? No….
Within 6 minutes Pascal Gross had pulled the hosts deservedly level with a beautiful finish from the edge of the box. The worst thing about the hosts equaliser was that it was so simple for them. A ball flashed up the left wing left Kaoru Mitoma in a showdown with Mads Roerslev, who he had in his back pocket all game, and when Frank Onyeka came over to help his teammate this left Gross with the freedom of the Amex to ghost into space and fire home without anyone laying a glove on him.
Worse news was to come for the visitors though as their goalscorer and only real attacking threat left in their squad, Bryan Mbuemo, limped off injured before half-time. That he needed the help of 2 physios to leave the pitch was never going to be a good sign and it was later confirmed that he will be out for weeks (yet another name added to the injury list that could reach to the moon and back now).
With Mbuemo now out of action we had even less attacking threat than we previously had the Seagulls were all over us like that crab in finding nemo ‘Mine’. Quite how the hosts didn’t go in ahead at halftime is anyone’s guess, especially with the 7 added minutes to survive.
The relief at making it to half time with scores level was short lived though as it only took seven minutes of the second half for Brighton to find their winner. It came in humiliating fashion for the visitors, no less than they deserved, as Mitoma and Gross combined on the left again to create space for a cross to Jack Hinshelwood to nod in at the back post for the 18 year-old to score his first ever senior goal.
Hinshelwood may never have scored before but you’d never know it as he glided his way into acres of space at the back post to nod home for the winner. There was no Brentford player closer to him than the Isle of Wight.
Having tried to forget the rest of the match I can only go by the voice notes I made to find reasons why we only lost 2-1. It seems to mostly boil down to Brighton’s shooting boots having left the stadium as Brentford showed no signs of mounting any sort of comeback.
Despite this chastening experience I was confident once more as I travelled up to South Yorkshire to follow the Bees once just 3 days later. This time our opponents would be a bottom of the league Sheffield United team that had managed just 5 points so far this season and recently got handed a 5-0 beating by Burnley that pushed them into changing managers.
Turns out sacking Paul Heckingbottom and reverting to Chris Wilder was a brilliant call from the owners as not only did the Blades push Liverpool close in midweek, whilst Brighton were beating the Bees, but they cut us to shreds here too.
The injury list that Mbuemo had been added too already included; Kevin Shade, Nathan Collins, Kristoffer Ajer, Josh DaSilva, Mathias Jensen, Aaron Hickey and Rico Henry. Any of those 7 would walk into our best 11 and with Mbeumo joining them and Ivan Toney still serving his gambling ban it’s fair to say the Bees were down to bare bones. I just wish it hadn’t shown so much.
Sure Sheffield United were benefitting from a new manager boost but we were making them look like Manchester City at their irrepressible best. We barely managed to string 5 passes together all game and without our creative midfield players, our best strikers or our marauding full-backs to pin their wingers back we didn’t cause them a single second of worry all match.
For all the hosts would know they could have been playing against statues and the only shocking thing was how long it took the hosts to score. It was in the 3 added minutes at the end of the first half that James McAtee fired home to give the bottom-feeders the lead they deserved. As with Gross’ equaliser for Brighton he had no-one near him as he gloriously guided the ball past Mark Flekken for what would prove to be the only goal of the game.
I’m not gonna waste more than a sentence on the rest of the United game because the quality was just that bad. The most memorable part of that second half was standing under a gap between two sections of roof as the pouring ran broke through and doused me as I watched my team get crushed, the weather perfectly matched my mood that afternoon.
Brentford’s troubles outside London are well documented, we last won in such a game back in March against a Southampton team headed for relegation. Whilst some of the recent failures can be explained by our injury list and lack of squad depth in certain positions what this does not explain is how often we throw away leads.
We led against Brighton before succumbing to our fate but we also led at Old Trafford this season from the 26th minute until the 93rd, before losing 2-1, and we led 1-0 against a 10-man Nottingham Forest team, before they equalised, we even had a late lead in the league cup 2nd round away at league 2 Newport County, before being pegged back in 2nd half stoppage time.
Whatever the reason for those thrown away points it’s clear that our main problem is our abysmal form outside of our home city, 18 of our 19 points so far this season have been won in London, and until Thomas Frank can find a cure for this debilitating travel sickness we will struggle to push on in the league.
Thankfully for Bee’s fans he has plenty of time to find this cure as Brentford do not leave London again till their trip to Wolves on Saturday 10th February. I have everything crossed that the cure is in full force by then.
Any football fan can name hundreds or thousands of players who ply their trade in any of dozens leagues across countless nations and every FIFA confederation, but only the most avid fans can name more than a few from beyond their own era.
Players from before the internet age, where multi-million dollar stars are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and hoover up brand and TV deals from every corner, had barely any chance of making their name known outside of the community of the boyhood club most spent their whole career with.
The exceptions to this rule are vanishingly few and far between inside the football-verse let alone seeping through the cracks into wider the wider public conciseness. There are perhaps 4 players who have achieved this incredible feat in England; Sir Stanley Matthews, Sir Geoff Hurst, Sir Bobby Moore and last, but by no means least, Sir Bobby Charlton.
During His Playing Days
During His Days As A Club Director
Today I joined the crowd of mourners who applauded his funeral cortege as it passed in front of Old Trafford on the way to the ceremony to mark his passing at Manchester Cathedral. The crowd was 7 deep in most places as the procession made it’s way between the ground and the trinity statue, of which Charlton was an integral part during his on-field career.
Robert “Bobby” Charlton was born on 11th October 1937 in Ashington, Northumberland just 50 miles from the Scottish Border. The middle child of his father Robert “Bob” Charlton and mother Elizabeth Ellen “Cissie” Milburn, he dodged the miner’s life of his father when he was selected to join Manchester United in 1953.
Turning professional in 1954 he was finally handed his debut in October 1956, aged just 19. He bagged a brace under the Old Trafford lights to help his team secure a 4-2 victory over a Charlton Athletic team that would end up being relegated to the second division the following May. If Sir Bobby had any nerves about stepping into the senior team of the defending League Champions he hid it well that night and he would do even better in the return game with a hat-trick to celebrate at full-time.
With Charlton in their team the Busby babes would go on to retain the title, but fall to an agonising defeat 2-1 to Aston Villa in the FA Cup final having played 84 minutes with an outfield player in goal, after starting keeper Ray Wood left the pitch after 6 minutes having sustained a broken cheekbone sustained in a collision with Villa forward Peter McParland.
As the English representatives in the embryonic European Cup during that 1956-57 season Charlton’s United team would make it as far as the Semi-Finals, before succumbing to eventual winners Real Madrid 5-3 on aggregate.
The 1957-58 season was to be a tragic one for Charlton and United. On the way back from their European Cup second leg clash with Red Star Belgrade the team’s plane had to make a refuelling stop at Munich airport. By the time the plane was ready to get airborne once again the weather had turned truly abysmal. After two aborted take-offs and a full disembarkation whilst a technical fault was fixed the plane went to take off again. This is when disaster struck.
The plane veered off the runway and by the time it came to a stop it had been ripped in half. Only 8 of the 16 United players on board survived the crash and a further duo suffered such severe injuries that they never played again. Sir Bobby Charlton was one of the survivors.
How anyone could continue to function after losing half of their team-mates in such traumatic circumstances is a question for the ages and that makes Charlton’s accomplishments after the crash that much more incredible and inspiring.
He continued to play for Man U as they rebuilt in the aftermath of the tragedy and would go on to be an integral part of the club’s Holy Trinity of George Best, Denis Law and Charlton himself. Together with his fellow trinitarians he would help United to mark the 10th anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster in perfect fashion, by becoming the first English club to win the European Cup.
Under Wembley lights on 29th May 1968 92,225 people would watch as his brace would help fire United to a 4-1 victory over Benfica, but it was what he had accomplished at the same stadium 2 years before this victory that catapulted him into national folklore.
Winning the World Cup final 4-2 against West Germany on July 30th 1966, becoming part of the only England team to win it to this day is the first thing most people will recall when asked about Sir Bobby, but it was during the semi-final that he made his greatest personal contribution to this success.
Facing a Portugal team that boasted the mercurial Eusebio amongst it’s ranks Charlton won the game for the hosts with the brace that fired them to a 2-1 win and into the final that would see his team etch it’s name into the history books.
His Club’s Tribute To One Of Their Greatest Players
He ended his Untied career in 1973 with 758 appearances to his name, a record that would stand until 2008 when Ryan Giggs surpassed it, and tried his luck as Player-Manager at Preston-North End before returning to United as a key member of their Board of Directors in 1984. He was integral in the move to bring Sir Alex Ferguson to the club and we all know the success Fergie would bring to Sir Bobby’s beloved Red Devils.
He remained the club’s top goalscorer with 249 goals all the way up till 2017 when Wayne Rooney became the first player to score 250 for the club. It was also Rooney who became the first man to surpass Charlton’s 49 international goals for England, scoring his 50th in 2015 from the penalty spot at Wembley in a Euro 2016 qualifying win over Switzerland.
The Club Sir Bobby Devoted His Life Too
That he remains the 2nd highest goalscorer for his club and 3rd highest for England half a century after the end of his playing career is testament to his era-defining talent.
Sir Bobby’s passing, just 10 days after his 86th Birthday, leaves Sir Geoff Hurst as the last living member of that historic team, Denis Law as the last living member of the Trinity and the entire nation mourning the passing of a true legend.
Sunday 5th November 2023: FA Cup First Round Proper 2023/24: The Valley: Charlton Athletic vs Cray Valley Paper Mills (CVPM)
This was a match that stood out to me as a must-see match as soon as the First Round draw was made. The simple reason for this was that a goal-romp as a top half League One team delivered a lesson to their eighth-tier neighbours from just 3.8 miles away in South London seemed too tantalising to pass up.
Charlton’s Under 18’s had beaten CVPM 3-2 in a pre-season friendly so the senior team had to hit them for 5 or 6 right?… Wrong, very wrong indeed!
Valley View
CVPM had already beaten 5 opponents in qualifying to make it this far, including coming through 3 replays, so they ad a well of self-belief to dip into throughout the match and it served them well as they belied the 117 league place gap to their hosts.
However, Charlton lacked any belief at any level and it showed. Michael Appleton making the full set of 11 changes from the team that beat Wigan up at the DW probably didn’t help matters.
Sure the hosts took the lead in the 9th minute as Scott Fraser latched onto a simple ball through the centre of the CVPM defence, took it round Sam Freeman in goal and stroked the ball home into the empty net. That would be the highlight of the night for the hosts.
Keeping possession of the ball was no problem at all for The Addicks, but doing anything useful with it was far more of a problem. They lacked any cohesion in their playing style and seemed to revert to short, simple, backward passes at every opportunity and a frustrating amount of those failed to reach their intended target.
Their monopolisation of possession in the first half meant that this lack of ideas didn’t come back to bite them yet, with CVPM restricted to a couple of rapid breaks from deep that fizzled out before they could truly trouble Sam Walker in the Charlton goal. The hosts were further helped out by the Millers inability to beat the first man from corners.
Despite some questionable defensive play from their hosts it took 20 minutes for the visitors to carve out their first presentable chance, a cross from the right that was headed high over the bar by an unmarked Freddie Parker in the centre.
The only real positive for Appleton to cling onto at half-time, other than the 1-0 lead, was the excellent job James Abankwah had done of keeping CVPM’s star striker Kyrell Lisbie firmly in his back pocket.
Lisbie had scored 13 goals in 17 games in all competitions this season but failed to get a single sight of goal all half under Abankwah’s tight supervision. Though Abankwah was also guilty of playing keepie-uppies on the edge of the CVPM penalty area when he had the whole goal to aim at instead.
A Neighbourhood Battle Begins
Steve McKimm’s half-time team talk for his 8th tier Millers would have been easier than his opposite numbers. Appleton had to try (and fail) to imbue a fighting spirit into his team, whilst all McKimm had to do was say ‘more of the same lads’ and ‘take the chance when it comes’.
Whatever the true content of the visitors team talk it worked a treat as they started the second half at 10,000mph and got the equaliser within 3 minutes of the restart. A simple ball down the left got Lisbie into space and when his cross was slid across the 6 yard box it was poked home. Cue rapturous celebrations from visiting fans behind the goal.
The only thing missing from the equaliser was clarity over who got the final touch on it. Originally the stadium’s screen credited the goal to Freeman, CVPM’s keeper, but as he was still in his own 6-yard box this seemed exceedingly unlikely.
In the end it turned out to be the most obvious scorer of all, a Charlton defender!
Lucas Ness was the unfortunate individual to turn the ball home as he waved a leg at the cross which diverted it past the statuesque Walker. Given the inept nature of some of Charlton’s play up till this point it was a truly fitting way for them to throw away their lead.
This latest screw up from the hosts was feeding into a growing tidal wave of frustration in the home stands and during the next 10 minutes this was all turned on just one man, Charlie Kirk.
Kirk had been plying his trade rather anonymously on the left flank up to this point of the match but two glaring misses with the goal at his mercy from point blank range suddenly made him stand out like a pacifist in the armed forces. The first of these chances came less than a minute after the equaliser as he headed over from 2 yards out at the back post, despite being completed unmarked.
He followed this up by blazing over the bar from a similar distance when latching on to a brilliant cross field ball that dropped invitingly into his stride. Having missed these two winners in waiting it was no surprise when the home fans booed him off as he was replaced by Alfie May on the hour mark.
That substitution was part of a triple roll of the dice by Appleton, but it seemed to make little difference to the pattern of play.
Sure Alfie added steel to a midfield that had been steadily losing its iron grip on possession, but without a proper target to aim his array of passing abilities towards Charlton remained infuriatingly ineffective in the final third.
As the game enter the final 10 minutes of normal time it was the visitors who looked far more likely to provide the winner.
Despite failing to get the winner their second half performance deserved the away fans exploded into a tsunami of joy at the final whistle, whilst the hosts were unanimously booed straight down the tunnel. In truth this was no-more than the hosts deserved for the sheer ineptitude of their play and if they play like that during the replay they will knocked out by their 8th tier neighbours.
Feels Like A Victory
Before the match Cray Valley would have ripped you hand off for a draw and a chance to finish the job back at their place, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the away fans will have left filled with disappointment that they didn’t get the job done in one sitting.
They will have a second chance back at the Badgers Sports Ground, whose capacity has been specially increased to 1,500 (up from a normal 1,000) for the occasion.
That match will kick-off at 19:45 on Wednesday 15th November and if Cray Valley can get Kyrell Lisbie back on form for it then Charlton have no chance of winning unless they up their play by 1,000 levels from where it was today. A trip to League 2 Gillingham awaits in the second round.
So if the Millers win the replay they have a tantalising opportunity to make it to the fabled Third Round and a potential trip to a huge Premier League team.
McKimm’s job is to keep his players calm and focused on just the next game, but the fans will already be dreaming of where this FA Cup fairy-tale could take them.
The Football tourist 