Brentford outfox woeful Leicester
Leicester 0, Brentford 4; 21.02.2025
Having been pleased by a run of home successes early in the season, the Bees replaced it with another milestone – four away victories sandwiched by a valiant catch-up to snatch a point from Manchester City.
Admittedly, Leicester are no highflyers in the Premier League – relegation beckons disturbingly – but the ever-improving partners-in-plunder of Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo were enough to give the home side the collywobbles once the opening flourishes were dispensed with.
That took 17 minutes or so, whereupon Wissa bustled on to Mikkel Damsgaard’s meticulous pass to beat keeper Mads Hermansen. Ten minutes later it was Mbeumo’s turn, employing his golden left foot to send a rocket into the far corner.
Christian Nørgaard, with only striker Jamie Vardy doing his best to stand-in for the apparently absent defence, headed home to register the third after Damsgaard again prised open the home defence. Then, to his delight, Keane Lewis-Potter came close, only to fall foul of a hand-ball decision.
Sub Fábio Carhalvo was on target to poach another goal just before the end. Brentford looked like men pleased with their day’s work; Leicester just dog-tired.
Brentford 4-2-3-1: Flekken; Ayer (substitute Kayode 84m) Collins, Collins, Pinnock; Lewis-Potter, Nørgaard (Yarmoliuk 46); Janelt (Maghome 73), Mbeumo, Damsgaard (Fábio Carhalvo 72), Schade (Konak 87); Wissa.Bill Hagerty is a contributing editor to the Chiswick Calendar website.
Bees and the late, late show
Brentford 1, Everton 1; 26.02.2025
Those other Merseysiders – the team that isn’t running away with the Premier League championship – have experienced a sudden resurgence since David Moyes took control. Brentford were not necessarily impressed when Everton turned up at the Gtech Stadium: show us your muscles seemed to be the message from a team that recently had scored four times against Leicester and didn’t care who knew it.
But, as often happens, the latest visitors to Brentford were not quite the troubled outfit of the lower half of the table that had faced them last time out. Not that one would have known this from early exchanges, when the Bees presented a polished performance at home that promised to capture three points without undue inconvenience.
True, skipper Christian Nørgaard was missing through concussion, but crowd favourite Vitaly Janelt would be an admirable standby both as midfielder and captain. What was not to like?
From the supporters’ point of view, they scored a double-whammy in that they loved Janelt as much as they didn’t like James Tarkowski. Those with long memories could remember the Everton captain when he made himself unavailable for an important match while still on Brentford’s books. He decamped to Burnley before that club was relegated and moved on to Everton. Many were not amused by the tactic and still aren’t!
And so to the football, where Bryan Mbeumo went about his business with customary skill and Yoane Wissa introduced himself to the Everton travellers with a panache that made them blink more than once.
Everton’s forays into the Brentford half came largely antiseptic and recent acquisition Beto, a Portuguese-born striker, seemed out of sorts. He should have put Everton ahead when a penetrating long ball saw him failing to outwit Flekken in a one-on-one tussle that the goalkeeper won; then, three minutes later, Flekken managed to repeat the same medicine with a similar rush and tumble.
Having put hands before their eyes during all this, the Bees scored the goal they had been long promising, waiting until the referee’s added minutes for the ever-dangerous duo of Mbeumo and Wissa to deliver. In the Everton goalmouth Bryan rattled the crossbar and then saw Yoane take off like a rocket to clinch the score.
Everton’s revival could be attributed to Jason Pickford running the show, or so it seemed. The England goalkeeper not only guarded his goal – Wissa found the net again but was clearly offside – but dealt with kicks from anywhere he could reach without hailing a taxi, plus a running commentary that perked up his team mates no end.
And the team responded when a long ball dropped nicely into the penalty area exactly where full-back Jake O’Brien was standing. Brentford’s defence seemed frozen for a few seconds, enabling O’Brien to select a space out of Flekken’s reach. Impeccable as he had been through the match, Flekken would be forgiven if he was a tiny bit miffed.
On the whole, a draw was a fair enough result, I observed to my mate Charlie. ‘I only like one kind of draw’ said Charlie, ‘and that’s scoring more goals than the opposition.’
Brentford: (4-3-3): Ayer (substitute Kayode 81m), Collins, Pinnock, Lewis-Potter; Janelt, Damsgaard, Yarmoliuk; Mbeumo, Wissa, Schade (Maghoma 76).
Everton (4-2-3-1): Pickford, O’Brien, Tarkowski; Branthwaite, Mykolenko; Garner, Gueve (Iroegbunam 75); Lindstrom (A Young 75); Alcaraz, Harrison; Beto.
Bill Hagerty is a contributing editor to the Chiswick Calendar website.