BillytheBee avoids the Gatwick ‘Trolly Dollies’ night out and heads for an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere, riddled with thuggish security guards, to see the Bees get back on track with their promotion push.
Brentford came away from their first league visit to Crawley with all three points as they took advantage of a 1st minute sending off to go two goals clear in the first half.
Mark Connolly was sent for an early bath for holding Clayton Donaldson in the penalty area. Unfortunately, Donaldson, who has already missed a penalty this season and wasn’t Uwe Rosler’s first choice penalty taker, dragged the ball well wide of the goal and Crawley were left to breathe again – albeit with ten men.
However, Brentford began to get a grip on the game before taking the lead. Donaldson made ground and the ball fell to Saunders who rifled it into the back of the net from 18 yards to send the 1,100 Brentford fans potty.
Brentford looked comfortable with Donaldson, Wright-Phillips and Adeyemi all having decent chances in the first half. However, it took a mistake from Crawley’s defence to see Brentford break through once again. Forshaw played the ball forward into space, and very strangely, neither the defender or goalkeeper reacted to the ball, which allowed Donaldson to nip in and score his 20th goal of the season … and get booked for ripping his t-shirt off to display the words “for you mum”, dedicated to his recently deceased mother. Cheers ref!
With the Bees 2-0 up at the break, it was time for the Crawley ‘response team’ security militias to participate in some particularly heavy-handed dealings with the Brentford fans, forcibly ejecting a number of people.
Having personally witnessed one moody security guard’s unnecessary behaviour with fans on the turnstile, it wasn’t surprising that it all went horribly pear shaped during the interval. Speaking to some of the Crawley regular stewards after the incidents, they were quick to differentiate themselves from the Crawley blue-bibbed ‘special response’ mob and told us that they had received complaints before about their heavy handedness – they knew exactly who the main culprits were without us having to point them out. Brentford police in attendance were unable to intervene as the incidents occurred inside the stadium but mooted that it could have been handled much better saying they were going to go away and study the CCTV footage.
Obviously the stewards’ bullying had got to both the Brentford players and referee as after the break, as Brentford looked nervy. Crawley were unable to score from a couple of half-chances so the referee decided to book Forshaw for diving in the area on the 58th minute after he was blatantly tripped in the area (I was dead in line when it happened. Stone cold penalty). Being Forshaw’s second yellow card, he was also made to take an early shower. The ref could now sleep better. It was even stevens.
Less than 10 minutes later Nicky Adams, who Brentford had spent years trying to get down to Griffin Park, then kept him on the books for around 24 seconds before then releasing him to Rochdale, scored a peach of a goal – a curling shot from outside the area – to get Crawley right back into the game.
Both Brentford and Crawley had chances as the game went on. Scott Barron had an excellent chance reflex-saved by the feet of Crawley keeper Jones. But as Brentford kept Crawley at bay, the referee inexplicably decided to add on seven minutes of injury time (we feel that he may have actually added on the time the referee forgot to add on against Walsall on Saturday). Despite the referee’s efforts, the score remained 2-1 to the Bees after a slightly nervy last 15 minutes or so.
All in all, a great result. Douglas is looking more and more like the guvnor as matches go on. His reading of the game is exceptional and he is quite literally all over the place mopping up and initiating attacks. Donaldson is a handful and no-one like playing against him. Liam Moore seems to have one hell of a leap on him, which could be useful for corners. And Barron, when he came on, looked tidy.
So just what the doctor ordered. Not a great 90 minute performance, but Brentford showed the steel to produce a well ground-out result – similar to what Charlton did last season. The amount of times players literally threw themselves in front of the ball to block attacks tells a story – last season we may have drawn or lost this game.
There is no point looking at the league table as it’s far too tight. Brentford know what they have to do. They have to get back on a run like they did before our unenforced Xmas ‘rain break’. With a mere four points and a game in hand between us in 5th place, and Doncaster in 1st, it’s too tight to be thinking week-on-week.
However, it is undisputed that Brentford are hard to beat. Only Doncaster, Yeovil and Tranmere have beaten us in the last 29 league matches. With our newly reinforced strike force, ball-playing midfield and resilient defence, there aren’t too many teams in our division who will be looking forward to playing us over the forthcoming months. Lets put that to our advantage.
And with a lorra lorra luck, we won’t ever have to visit Crawley with their thuggish ruggish stewards ever again.
BillytheBee
Billythebee99
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