Villa resist Bees’ second-half barrage
Brentford 0, Aston Villa 1; 08.03.2025
The frustrated Bees’ players were not happy. The team’s spectators, suffering from hoarseness with no reward for their efforts, were not happy. Thomas Frank, sanguine at the best of times, was not happy on a sun-dappled but otherwise gloomy afternoon that certainly could not be described as the best of times.
And then there was the referee, Mr Jarred Gillett, an experienced official who raised the ire of the home crowd (and that of Thomas Frank, and of Bees’ players, especially Kevin Shade, who twice ended in a heap without so much as attracting a cursory glance from the man in charge).
Shade had been dumped in the penalty area twice in quick succession, but the first occasion looked like a good shout for a penalty when up-ended by defender Axel Disasi. The second was debatable, but the first, certainly to everyone present other than the vocal loyalist Villa supporters, a dead-cert as my mate Charlie pronounced.
Then there was Ollie Watkins, once of Brentford’s playing staff and now a luminary at Villa Park, who presumably was a happy man but kept it well hidden from the regulars at the Gtech Stadium.
Ollie has a habit of scoring at the Gtech – half-a-dozen times in recent memory – but recalls his years at Griffin Park fondly and did not make an undue fuss when his low longshot collected a slight diversion that saw him put Villa in front early in the second half. What a gent!
The game had been equally balanced until then (or two or three minutes later, actually, when Watkins provided the cross for Morgan Rogers to score a second before VAR took time enough to bake a cake before disallowing it for offside).
As it was, the deficit seemed to pep up Brentford. Keane Lewis-Potter’s shot looked like delivering the goal the wing-back wants so much until goalkeeper Robin Olsen managed to save it with style. The Lion’s Olsen deserved a special mention for deputising for the injured Emiliano Martinez and producing a treasure trove of spectacular stops as the Bees dominated the remainder of the action.
Yoane Wissa came close with a shot that nestled in the outside of the keeper’s net and, late on, chased down a wicked clearance that left the Villa defence floundering until Olsen charged out of his area to get to it first.
Similarly, Mark Flekken smartly turned himself into a one-man wall to block Watkins as he bore down on goal – one of Villa’s rare ventures into the Bees’ half – and Lewis-Potter hit a goalpost in yet another nearly-but-not-quite effort.
Villa managed to hold on as Brentford’s strike force of Bryan Mbeumo, Wissa and Schade toiled and stuttered but never stopped running. Another flawless performance in midfield, and anywhere else where he was required, made Mikkel Damsgaard Brentford’s man of the match, but come the final whistle, even he hadn’t managed to weave the magic necessary.
Thomas Frank felt the afternoon ‘Disheartening’, as the home crowd booed the referee from the pitch.
Not at their best today, I said to my mate Charlie, as Aston Villa departed to prepare for their Champions League round of 16 match v Club Bruges on Wednesday.
‘Good luck to them,’ said Charlie. ‘Shame they can’t take this referee with them.’
Brentford (4-2-3-1): Flekken; Ajer (substitute Ji Soo 90m), Collins, Pinnock, Lewis-Potter; Nørgaard, Janelt (Jensen 76); Mbeumo, Damsgaard, Schade; Wissa.
Aston Villa (4-2-3-1): Olsen; Disasi, Konsa, Mings, Digne; McGinn (Kamara 61), Tielemans; Bailey (Cash 46), Rogers (Malen 90), Ramsey (Rashford 67); Watkins.
Bill Hagerty is a contributing editor to the Chiswick Calendar website.