THIRD SEASON: Hat’s off to Bees
Brentford 3, Luton Town 1; 2 December 2024
Having been given a dusting by Liverpool and then edged out by Arsenal, the Bees were patently determined to get back to winning ways. They need not have worried. Last season qualifiers for the Premier League, The Hatters – so named because of the town’s history in the titfer trade – have been struggling since its start and their visit to the Gtech Community Stadium did nothing to suggest happier days were imminent.
The first half saw Brentford dominate the visitors, creating a string of chances without converting any of them into goals. Early on, Bryan Mbeumo came close, firing a shot past a post. Sadly, this has not been exactly a rarity in his game, but the paucity of Luton’s own efforts to get on the scoresheet suggested the sprightliest of the Bees’ attacking force might be better rewarded this time out.
Not so, although Mbeumo’s non-stop industry ensured that he was, once again, the pick of a home side lacking seven or eight players who as often or not would come near the front of the queue should they not be nursing debilitating injuries that ruled out their participation. (The most recent of these was full-back Kristoffer Ajer, hurt seriously enough during the pre-match warm-up to take no further part in the proceedings.)
As it was, few interesting incidents occurred. Luton goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski, having irritated referee Anthony Taylor and the home crowd by apparently adopting slow-motion whenever required to return the ball into play, was issued with a yellow card for time-wasting. It seemed to speed him up no end.
And when the visiting captain, Tom Lockyer, needed attention to hobble from the field, he set up a rare double event, Jacob Brown replacing the skipper after the break. [There was a more serious health problem to beset Lockyer, in Luton’s game against Bournemouth, when he suffered a cardiac arrest and the match was abandoned with the score 1-1].
The solitary change in their line-up seemed to discombobulate Luton somewhat and Brentford went ahead just four minutes after the restart. Pressure on the visitors within their goal area saw the marauding Ben Mee – another splendid performance from him – help the ball on its way to Neal Maupay – quiet for most of the preceding half – who scored from close in.
If Mee was downhearted by his own goal evaporating, it took just seven more minutes for him to put matters right, soaring above friends and foes alike to despatch a forceful header beyond Kaminski.
Strangely, this double-whammy perked up Luton and the Bees increasingly discovered they could no longer have their own way. The aforementioned Brown became a pest and might have scored had he not directed a shot towards a corner flag rather than the goal, but with fifteen minutes left a Bees’ defensive error allowed Ross Barkley to provide a penetrating pass for the sub to finish neatly.
The goal added fuel to their continuing raids on the Brentford defence, but it was too little too late. And when two of Thomas Frank’s subs combined – Keane Lewis-Potter to do the foraging, Shandon Baptiste the finish – it was all over bar the scampering of home and away supporters to escape a wicked chill that would take brave men to remain on watch for the head coach and Brentford players’ lap of honour.
Come the following day, Chelsea managed to beat Brighton and establish themselves exactly equal with Brentford in wins, draws and goal difference. My mate Charlie wanted to know why Chelsea’s figures were above Brentford on the BBC chart. What happened to good old alphabetical order? asked Charlie.
Don’t know, I told him. Well, said Charlie, I’ll eat my hat!
Brentford: Flekken; Ghoddos (substitute Roerslev 77’). Pinnock, Mee: Janelt, Onyeka, Nørgaard, Yarmoliuk (sub Baptiste 70’); Mbeumo (sub Lewis-Porter 78’). Maupay (sub Peart-Harris 78’), Wissa.
Luton: Kasminski; Mengi (sub Giles 76’), Lockyer (sub Brown 45’), Osho; Kaboré, Mpanzu (sub Clark 60’), Barkley; Bell, Chong, Ogbene (sub Townsend 60’); Morris (sub Adebayo 60’).
Brighton & Hove Albion 2, Brentford 1; 6 December 2024
First the good news: Bryan Mbeumo scored a peach of a penalty to put Brentford ahead at the American Express Stadium, just when it looked as though the home side was about to apply a stranglehold on the game.
And the bad? Having seen goalkeeper Jason Steele take off in the wrong direction as Mbeumo caressed the ball into the far corner, Bryan barely had time to celebrate before taking a tumble serious enough to demand prolonged treatment and leave him with a distinct limp as a calling card. Bees’ coach, Thomas Frank, having witnessed an injury list growing longer by the week, might have been forgiven for tearing some of his luxuriant hair as what had already look like an uphill struggle suddenly became one at which the Grand Old Duke of York and his ten thousand men would flinch.
Four minutes after Mbeumo’s departure from the pitch, the slick Brighton side were on terms. The Brentford defence looked increasingly fragile as the home attack knitted together a precise chain of passes that Kaora Mitoma ended by feeding Pascal Gross for the midfielder to lash an unstoppable shot beyond Mark Flekken.
Brighton continued to press but 18-year-old Jack Hinshelwood clinched the points after 52 minutes when finding space and leaping to head Gross’s cross home. The Bees didn’t give up – Bees don’t! – but Yoane Wissa and Ivan Maupay struggled in the absence of their main playmaker and leading scorer.
If Mbeumo remains sidelined for long, it could be an even colder Christmas that we already expect.
Brentford: Flekken; Roerslev (substitute Peart-Harris 84’), Pinnock, Mee, Ghoddos; Onyeka, Yarmoliuk (sub Lewis-Potter 45’), Janelt, Baptiste (sub Damsgaard 69’); Mbeumo (sub Wissa 40’).
Sheffield United 1, Brentford 0; 9 December 2023
With a squad decimated by injury and its star forward out for the foreseeable future, the Bees headed for Bramall Lane with, one might suggest, more hope than anticipation. United, with a solitary win recorded so far this term, were probably thinking similarly. Spectacle and a hat-full of goals were not on the menu.
And yet, both sides delivered, even if it was the team rooted to the foot of the Premier League table that came out on top. Brentford, giving their all while displaying a magnificent positive attitude – no change, there – dominated play for periods, adding up to 60 per cent overall.
Sheffield, runners-up to Burnley in the competition for promotion from the Championship, responded with guts and fortitude and one stroke of class In the few minutes added to the first half, Manchester City loanee James McAtee received from Gustav Hamer and clipped the ball into the goalmouth and over a despairing Mark Flekken.
Yoane Wissa had the speed and determination to unsettle United but, disappointingly, lacked the finish to score the equaliser. Neal Maupay, all heart, has yet to establish the goalmouth presence that can rattle the best of defenders but, hey, how he tries.
Thomas Frank was philosophical come the final whistle, telling the BBC: ‘Injuries don’t help any team,’ adding, ‘I think we have a little bit too many.’ You can say that again, Thomas.
Sheffield’s returnee chief trainer Chris Wilder, jubilant at the end, commented, ‘You have to enjoy days like today.’
Brentford’s turn next?
Brentford: Flekken; Ghoddos, Pinnock, Mee, Janelt; Onyeka (substitute Yarmoliuk 45’), Nørgaard; Baptiste (sub Damsgaard 66’), Lewis-Potter (sub Olakigbe 66’), Maupay.
THIRD SEASON:
Brentford 1, Aston Villa 2; 17 December 2024
So much for Christmas cheer. Those supporters, home and away, who ventured to the Gtech Stadium to watch some classy football from the Bees and their high-flying Midlands visitors must have wondered whether tin hats were required when the game exploded into a bad-tempered display of petulance and scuffling.
What triggered the troubles? Could it have been a foolhardy flying tackle by Ben Mee, which resulted in a yellow – no, hang on a minute – a red card, reducing the Bees to ten men after 71 minutes? Never a red card, was Thomas Frank’s view.
Or perhaps the simmering became an open fire when referee David Coote failed to award a penalty as Neal Maupay rushed into the Villa penalty area and was up-ended. A defining moment in the game and one not helped by VAR, said Frank when he came down from the stratosphere following the final whistle.
But there was more: Ollie Watkins, an ex-Bee previously made welcome by the Brentford crowd on his visits, lost goodwill when pointing a figure from the back of the net to single out an oaf who he believed had abused him. And then came the carnival of errors, started when keeper Emiliano Martínez chased a ludicrous back-pass drifting just past a post to the considerable mirth of Maupay (and several thousand others, I imagine).
Maupay’s brush as he ran past Martínez – light as a feather compared to the real thing, although the keeper went down as if machine-gunned, the cissy – seemed to get his mad up, enough to try to remove the Bee’s shirt as he sat on the turf. All around, practically every player became involved in some kind of brawl. Several were issued with yellow cards, plus a red one for bad luck to Boubacar Kamara.
Referee Coote was probably too busy dispensing cards – Frank and Villa’s manager, Unai Emery, each received one – to pay attention to the carnage around him. Certainly, recording names in his notebook looked bizarre as chaos reigned.
Earlier there had been a football game, and a rather good one at that. Mikkel Dasmsgaard missed a chance that would have seen Brentford leap into the ascendancy over a Villa side not yet wholly cohesive and Joane Wissa skidded when well placed before the offside flag stopped play. This wasn’t the way one would have forecast the performance of a Bees side so stretched through wholesale injuries that it seemed unlikely they could actually field eleven players all at the same time.
And worse was to come for the visitors when they fell behind in the dying seconds of the first half, Keane Lewis-Potter seizing upon a wayward corner to shoot through a forest of legs to score his first goal for the club.
Villa came more into the game after the break, drawing excellent defensive discipline from the Bees until Mee’s rash clattering of substitute Leon Bailey. Mr Coote initially dispensed a yellow card but changed his mind after prompting from video referee Craig Pawson. A game-changer if ever there was one, which an unmarked Alex Moreno proved six minutes later by heading home a meticulous cross from Bailey.
Watkins, having been largely subdued by the attentions of the defence until then, firmly headed Villa in front five minutes from the end of normal time after Kamara’s flick of a kick had found him lurking purposely in the goalmouth. While understandable, the striker’s finger-pointing celebration appeared to be incendiary. Pandemonium swiftly followed.
At the end of the day, Villa were nestling below only Arsenal in the Premier League table, level on points with Liverpool. Brentford are twelfth, which looks reasonable until one sees the cluster of sides gathering below them, equal on points or only just behind.
I reflected later to my mate Charlie that a difficult period is probably ahead. ‘Happy Christmas,’ said Charlie.
Brentford: Flekken; Zanka, Pinnock, Mee; Roerslev (substitute Olakigbe 89’), Damsgaard (sub Onyeka 68’) Nørgaard, Janelt (sub Yarmoliuk 88’), Ghoddos; Lewis-Potter (sub Maupay 68’), Wissa (sub CollIns 76’).
Aston Villa: Martínez; Konsa, Diego Carlos, Torres (sub Zaniolo 81’); Cash (sub Bailey 65’), McGinn, Kamara, J Ramsey (sub Dendoncker 90’), Moreno; Diaby (sub Durán 65’), Watkins.
Bill Hagerty is a contributing editor to the Chiswick Calendar website.