Alex Dalton writes his second article for Beesotted- this time his it’s not such happy times as he tried to fathom exactly what has been going wrong this season
Much like our season so far, writing this piece has been a struggle, (and after watching the sorry display on Saturday, Bubbles Spa (above) was arguably the only place Brentford would have scored in Derby this weekend –Ed)
When I first wrote for Beesotted in the summer regarding where (in my opinion) we possibly needed to make changes/improvements, to go that extra step, and the signings made at that time, I was full of optimism.
The next article I anticipated writing 6-8 games into the season – when I daydreamed back in July – lauded the signing of Bjelland who, by now, was providing the calmness, organisation and experience Tarkowski was obviously benefiting from. At the same time adding a smidgen of pace in the centre to deal with the more speedy Championship strikers and eliminate our achilles heel – the long, direct ball over the top. In my daydreams clean sheets were becoming a regular occurrence and genuine competition for places in the form of Dean, Barbet, Yennaris and O’Connell were keeping everybody on their toes.
Kerschbaumer, so impressive against Stoke in the pre season friendly in an all-action display would be providing the pressing, the cute passing, the breaking up of play and chipping in with some important goals. This was the younger, more dynamic Douglas that could deliver week-in, week-out in a way the real Douglas no longer could.
McEachran acting as the pivot (yes I know that’s the word du’jour in coaching parlance but I was daydreaming!), always available to receive the ball from the back four and knitting defence into attack seamlessly.
Up top, Gray was flourishing with some proper support from the international Vibe and we had a genuine Plan B in big Philipp Hoffman, who would come off the bench and rescue games with bullet headers in the last few minutes!
As I said, that was the article I wanted to write.
Sadly those daydreams seem like a lifetime ago.
The systematic dismantling of the backbone of the squad last year has been disappointing, although mostly understandable when you consider the fees involved. Nobody could begrudge the club taking the Gray fee, or cashing in on Odubajo when it was clear he wanted to move on.
If the club does genuinely want to adopt the “model” of, say, Southampton or the baseball team Oakland Athletics, then us fans will have to accept that when other clubs are willing to pay above the odds for our assets, the club will sell. That’s just the way it works.
The Dallas transfer was the most disappointing, I really think he will turn into a very good Championship player, but again, when a club is willing to pay over a million pounds for potential (let’s not forget Dallas was never a regular starter), the “model” only has one answer. We’d better get used to it.
Of course, allowing players to leave and not adequately replacing them (or having ready-made replacements already at the club) would be incredibly short-term thinking and in defence of the club and its “model” they have been incredibly unlucky. Without ready-made replacements already at the club they have invested (or re-invested) funds into the playing squad to attempt to replace the key individuals who have left.
I genuinely believe if we had a fit Jota, McEachran, Bjelland and Colin we would be in a much healthier position than the Bees of this time last year, and more than likely Dijkhuizen would still be head coach.
I realise this is easy to say, of course we will never know, but when I started thinking about this I thought it would be interesting to look at exactly how we compare with the start from last year.
Interestingly, these are the basics:
14/15
P8 W3 D2 L3 GF 9 GA 13
15/16
P8 W2 D2 L4 GF 12 GA 15
I was surprised to see that we had already scored more goals than the previous season. Watching us this year it seems a monumental struggle at times to create a shot on target, let alone find the back of the net. Perhaps this is because we’re usually trying to come from behind and it actually *is* a huge struggle to score goals with teams defending for their lives.
Obviously this is comparing this season with a team that was playing Championship football for the first time in 21 years, so perhaps not a great basis to judge a team who were one of the front-runners in the betting to actually win the Championship at the start of August. Any club should strive to improve on the season before, regardless of whether we outstripped most expectations.
With this in mind, I looked at the statistics from the best period of last year. That was the final three games in October and all the games from November where we won every Championship game in that month. This was our best run of form of the season and would be an interesting barometer to judge how we are currently performing in comparison.
The statistics for the 14/15 team of that period reads:
P8 W5 D2 L1 GF 15 GA 8
As you can see, if you now compare the start from this year to a run of form we would all wish on the current team, not surprisingly we don’t compare too well.
But as I delved deeper into the match statistics from these two periods some of the findings became quite startling.
From this eight game period, I averaged out the key metrics. Those being Possession, Shots, Shots on Target and Goals.
| Year | Avg % Possession | Avg Shots per Game | Avg Shots on Target per Game | Avg Goals per Game |
| 14/15 | 53% | 12.75 | 5.125 | 1.875 |
| 15/16 | 59% | 14 | 4.875 | 1.625 |
My overwhelming memory of the football played under Warburton was almost death by possession (good possession most of the time don’t get me wrong!) in some games, yet surprisingly, the team this year averages more possession. These are the first 8 games remember, it does not include the Birmingham game where, at times, it really was death by possession for the sake of possession.
A higher average shots on goal this year amazed me but that should be tempered by the fact that we are clearly not as efficient in front of goal as the team from last year which is probably not surprising when you consider we sold that teams striker for many millions and this was the best form of that season.
But, regardless of the attacking efficiency of that team, there wasn’t the huge difference I was expecting.
So, if our attacking play compares OK to a team that made the play-off’s last season – at its best – why are we struggling so badly?
Well, it probably doesn’t take a genius to work out that we’re probably leaking too many goals. And it didn’t!
In fairness, this isn’t exactly a new problem. Last year we conceded far too many and it ultimately cost us. It’s no surprise that the marquee signing of the summer, and club record fee, was for a centre back. This was an area that needed attention.
To see how we compared, I took the attacking metrics from the opposition for the same period.
| Year | Avg % Possession | Avg Shots per Game | Avg Shots on Target per Game | Avg Goals per Game |
| 14/15 | 47% | 14 | 4.375 | 1 |
| 15/16 | 40% | 15.5 | 6 | 1.875 |
Things now begin to get interesting. Not only do the opposition have quite a fair bit less possession this year (which ordinarily would be a good thing) but worryingly, they create more chances than last year with that reduced possession. They are also converting more of those chances, so you could perhaps reasonably conclude that these chances are also of a better quality.
When you look at the setup of the team this year, you would think we should be more solid than the team of last year with the personnel playing. For the majority of games we have had “Dave” and McCormack essentially sitting which should offer more protection. Last year, more often than not, it was just “Dave”, as Douglas seemed to be deployed in much more of an attacking role when we had possession.
I read a quote from Dijkhuizen shortly before he was sacked saying he wants us to play a high tempo pressing game and to press from the front. Presumably this is a key role (or at least was) for Kerschbaumer but too often he is found too far off the opposing back four to help press with the attackers and too high up the pitch when the opposition is in possession to help win it back. Watching him can be incredibly frustrating. He does seem to have some quality, and the Stoke friendly certainly gave us a glimpse of what he might be able to produce in that role, but the fact remains that he rarely seems to get involved enough in play to influence anything. He’s simply not producing enough in attack or defence. We start to look far more threatening (and perhaps more balanced) when Kerschbaumer is sacrificed and some orthodox creativity is introduced out wide.
Clearly, defending is a team effort, but the back four this season has, at times, conceded some shocking goals. Personally, whether you’re a bigger fan of Tarkowski or Dean (and I am most firmly in the Tarkowski camp), there seems to be a real lack of organisation when they play together. As I said at the beginning of this piece, presumably Bjelland was brought in to provide this, and the biggest disappointment this season for me was hearing of the long-term injury sustained against Oxford. I’m quite surprised the club hasn’t looked to a loan signing here. If they thought the problem big enough to spend a club record fee on a centre back, it baffles me as to why they now no longer feel we need to strengthen in this area?
Watching the highlights of the goals conceded this year is truly difficult watching. The first goal against Ipswich shows a shot from outside the area palmed away by Button and Dean just completely stand still, as if in a trance, whilst the man he is marking wanders onto the back post. Tarkowski completely loses his man and a simple ball into the six-yard area gives the Ipswich attacker a simple volley past the keeper. If he had missed it, the attacker Dean was marking outside the box, now completely unmarked, was there to finish it off.
The second goal at Bristol City is a completely free header from a set piece. No clever movement, just a routine near post corner headed goalwards without challenge. Goals have been conceded directly from corners against Bristol City, Burnley and Birmingham.
The second goal at ‘Boro is another case of poor organisation. Colin too far up the pitch to cover the left sided attacker but Dean and Barbet, if communicating, can cover the two attackers. Barbet is just marking space. There are two attackers in the box with not a single other Boro attacker in sight and he is marking space. Surely a shout from Dean to take his man and Dean to drop onto the other man is basic defending? Lack of communication, once more, for the 3rd goal tops off a miserable night defensively.
The goal conceded at Leeds was down to an individual mistake, as was the second against Sheffield Wednesday.
You could probably pick holes in most of the goals we have conceded this year, and probably most of the goals every team has conceded to be fair. If every defence was immaculate it would be a boring game but I highlight these particular goals because they account for over 40% of the goals we have conceded. Goals, that with the right concentration, discipline and organisation could be drastically reduced in number.
It does worry me that we just don’t have the personnel at the back without Bjelland (and I do realise none of us have actually seen him complete 90 minutes of football in England). As much as I thought Barbet looked very assured on the ball i’m not sure he showed the grit and defensive ability that would make him a Championship defender at this stage. O’Connell, again, seems very assured on the ball (and what a cannon of a left foot!) but you could make a case for him being at fault for every goal conceded from the time he was introduced against Sheffield Wednesday.
A long-term injury to Bidwell, Tarkowski and/or Dean would leave us in desperate trouble. A worrying lack of options in the full back positions has seen McCormack return at right-back which we know from last year is papering over cracks at this level. McCormack’s performance against Birmingham was a stark reminder of the struggles he endured at the beginning of last year. Clarke, although incredibly raw, has looked good at times and his pace makes you feel we’d be a little less susceptible to the long direct ball we’re all bored of seeing undo us time and time again. The second Birmingham goal is just not something you should see at this level.
Although difficult to watch the goals conceded in order to write this article, I genuinely think it also offers hope that we can improve, and improve drastically even without the key injured players. Cutting out individual error’s and working hard on the training ground on organisation and defending *as a team*, I’d be confident we would soon see results start to go our way.
I listened to the latest Carsley interview where he said he wanted carry on the exciting, attacking football we have become used to. Whilst admirable, right now, I’d take a couple of sneaky 1-0 wins and some clean sheets.
Our attacking players, I feel sure, are the envy of most clubs in the division, but they can’t keep being asked to get us out of trouble in the last few minutes of games or when a goal down. How about we give them the last 10 minutes of games to go and get a winner?
Up the Bees!
Alex Dalton
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Superb, fact-based, enlightening article, thank you.
Very good article going some way to explain the frustrations of the majority of the fans, who now have a genuine fear, that the last 3 or 4 seasons of extremely hard work in achieving the goal of playing in a higher division than the lower 2 leagues of Englsh football, might now be under serious threat with the disasterous start and seemingly self imploding nature of the club at present. Make no bones about it, we are definitely in a relegation dogfight at the beginning of October and it will not be easy to get out of this one! Not the way the whole situation is being managed currently.
We were spoilt last year, of that it’s clear. Quality, exciting, attacking football at new grounds to visit against big clubs and after Bournemouth away and Nottingingham Forest away, when our performances gave us the belief that we were not only going to compete but be deservedly better than a good few teams as well. It was fantastic, a season like I’d never believed possible in 35 years of supporting Brentford. Then the news broke about Warburton, the upset caused, the recovery to a certain extent, the continuation of a charge to the play offs and then the acceptance that it might well be best for both parties, the club and Warburton to go our separate ways. This was coupled with the belief and the buying in to the system that Benham was creating, promising us that we were going to compete again and again until this hallowed promised land of the Premiership is to be achieved (and who really wants it if their totally truthful). Corporate meltdown, higher prices, club and players becoming distanced from each other, money driven spin on everything about the club. Not me but I’d love a few more years competing in the Championship though.
We had the close season of excitement of a new manager with new ideas but before that even, players coming in. Strange at first I’d thought, that players were being bought with no manager in place to see if he was happy to work with them but this was it, the new model, it must work, Benham told us it will. Exciting stuff. One midfielder, then another, add another centre midfielder, then another midfielder. A couple more, then an attacking midfielder and it was then that I started to think, hold on, this isn’t right here. Alarm bells started ringing, admittedly at a very low volume but still, ringing all the same. I’d watched last years team, I’d seen what I thought was good and great about the team but I also seen some places where I thought we could improve too and of all of it, midfield was my least concern. We were more than enough for most teams BECAUSE of our midfield but here it was getting a complete makeover, an overhaul. Weird!
What about a back up keeper for the outstanding Button. Would our season not have been drastically different if he’d got injured at any point last year and Bonham, the shaking, nervous, quivering wreck of a player had had to step in instead? Might get happen this season and if it does, we really are in the mire.
What about our defence, where only after Odabajo had stepped back in to replace an injured or more than likely, suspended again because of his draconian football style of rattling in to a player to show him who’s boss but not in a clever astute way but in a glaringly obvious, stupid, lacking in IQ way that everyone in the ground held their heads in disbelief way, that McCornack fouls players. Was it only then that we gained an attacking threat, even a slight goal threat, from one member of our defence? The addition of Moses at right back triggered for me though, a massive realisation that now, on the other flank, we had Bidwell, a player that if I was asked to name the starting 11 who played the game id just witnessed, would pretty much always be last or who I’d forget. Not for any reason other than, well, he just seems to be there. Nothing more, nothing less. A very much standard 5 out of 10 player, never ever in a million years going to be man of the match and definitely never ever going to get us a goal, let lone beat a man on the outside for pace or even swing in a decent cross once a game. He was a stale, name on the team sheet, not looking to change that position, left back but Odabajo showed us what we might expect on both flanks and as such, showed for me, that Bidwell, as good as he had been in Div 1 was now sub-standard in the Championship. Some fans might disagree but watch him, watch him closely and see if he ever does anything to excite you, ever!!
Then we had Dean, for all his heart, his passion, his bustling tackles, his desire to be good, he was unfortunately an error prone, mistake in every game, slow, combative, out manouvered & out of his depth centre back most weeks. He was also playing at least a division above his ability if not 2 above. I felt for him, he was isolated and exposed on several occasions but it has become painful to watch. We steadied the ship to an extent with Tarkowski who was composed, a ball player, strong and bulky and much calmer in demeanour but also one who seems to have got slower, has failed to progress because of his, in my opinion, self confidence or swagger in his own worth and instead of trying to better himself by adding to his game has gone backwards because of an ‘ I play in the Championship now and have made it’ attitude. Where has the hunger gone these days when the money, cars, houses and trappings are already all in place at the age of 23/24?
I know this is brutally harsh but of this remaining back 3, take away Odabajo, there is absolutely zero goal threat from any of them, not even from set pieces and don’t get me started on Tarkowskis penalty. So now we currently have a back 4, plus keeper obviously, who won’t give us a goal in any game. That’s 5 out of the starting 11. We also now have Dave, that jovial sounding nickname for Diagouraga. A break up the play and give it simple defending midfielder, who’s performances last year were punching well above his weight and some, from anything we’d seen from him previously. He was quality in a good few games last year and alongside Douglas was an imoveable line in front of our lightweight back 4 last season but goal threat ability? Also 100% zero. So much so it’s a standard, hilariously funny, running joke amongst our fans. Add him to the back 5 and that’s now 6 out of 11 players that we aren’t likely to get a goal out of in any game throughout the entire season!! Has Benham looked at this one glaring statistic of our team of this season then yet? Oh oh, this isn’t looking good. Our other 5 players must now be mustard.
So last year we had 5 players to score goals and be the creating, attacking force and also the defending from the front, protecting the back line, first line of defence and here’s where Warburton must have been a genius or our recruitment was first class. He managed to do exactly that. Wow. Jota, Pritchard, Douglas, Judge, Gray….sometimes Dallas too but they got us to 5th, even with that defence behind them. Unbelievable. No wonder under Benhams stats, he had us finishing no higher than mid table and accounted for most of our points with luck but he forget the heart and desire of these front 5. How many last minute wins, or draws did we manage. How many cheap goals did we give away and this lot pulled it back? Untold. Too many to remember in that great season. Memories that will last a lifetime. The greatest midfield ably supported by the battering ram, unpolished diamond of Gray up front but together they over achieved and we were eternally grateful.
Who, as a fan, thought that what we really needed to do close season, was rip apart the successful aspect of the team and leave in place the weakened end? I know this was the model, this was what we were buying in to and I would also have sold most of the team in the same circumstances for that amount of money. It meant we could recruit more of the same uncut diamonds…..or so we thought.
Admittedly, as a supporter, hearing the club has signed a defender, we don’t get over excited or not as much as a forward or midfielder but surely, surely, if Benham had ran his stats, that we are ensured are ran over all new signings, over his own defence, then we would surely be only left with Tarkowski as a member of the team this year and that only because of his potential to improve. I think Dean’s card has been marked already as being moved on but Bidwell has been made captain with no qualities with which to be that leader and also still no competition for that place which leaves his standard 5/10 performance week in week out under no threat whatsoever.
The club have made glaring errors. The pitch not being ready, the training ground, other minor incidents but what has not been mentioned in this article the 2 co-directors of football that we currently have at the healm and a very worrying, rent a comment chairman in Cliff Crown, which is a non-committal throw away comment that a steward standing in an orange coat on match day could say the same to you as you enter the ground for all its worth. I would be very hesitant to offer these 2 any assistance whatsoever and more so be calling them in and asking them to account for what has so far been a dreadful recruitment policy starting and very much highlighted by Dijkhousen, a man that never once looked comfortable in either the club or his tracksuit but also the basic lacking in knowledge, of what was right and what was wrong with our squad last season and therefore recruiting players in positions we didn’t even need to address and none in others which were and still are so so weak for the rigours of the Championship. According to the clubs own policy, this was not even down to Djikhousen but down to these 2 co-directors alone. So hands up lads, either of you have any experience of this before and of what’s needed in the Championship? Either if you saw enough games last year to know our team and where it needed improving? No? What! Can this really be true Mr Benham? Something so organised and stats based gets left to be run at the top by 2 untried, untested people? Never surely?
We need at least a reserve keeper of a high standard, a left back of attacking flare or an exciting overlapping prospect ( Aaron Greene in the reserve fits this mould), a pacy, comfortable, ball playing centre back alongside Tarkowski and hope that Colin is the answer at right back when he returns. We need to replace Diagouraga as he’s had his best days and is only now a sideways passer of the ball and will never play that incisive cut through a defence ball and then we need a miracle with the rest of the squad because Alan Judge has been isolated as our one and only game changing player. A constant goal threat, energy in abundance player but cannot operate alone. It’s too much on his shoulders.
How we got this so wrong is worrying, especially as Benham brought in ‘experts’ to oversee it. I’d be asking for the co-directors heads and their clearly more important outside interests of Smartodds or Mjitland FC respectively and get in people who’s only interest is Brentford FC, not any other nonsense.
I have faith that the successful Mr Benham will do it and act sooner rather than later but Lee Carsley isn’t the answer, nor his assistant bought in only months ago to act as a player advisor and is now a reserve coach of a championship club. They don’t want it, they’re not excited by it and I can tell you, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either cos they’re showing nothing to show any roots of recovery. It isn’t even looking like they have the energy, desire or passion to want to do it either and if we have a man on the sidelines standing with his arms folded and not muttering a word or gesturing to his players the need to raise energy levels, then it isn’t going to happen either.
Please sort out the shambles it has become. We have a defence that concedes an average of 2 a game. Therefore to win a game currently we would by the same token need to score 3 or more a game but we couldn’t buy a goal for toffee at present. As I said earlier, we only have 5 players out of 11 that might even get us a goal and of that 5″ realistically at present only 1 in Judge looking likely to get it for us.
That means with the team we have playing right now, we will let in at least 2 goals most games, not in a cat in hells chance of trying to score 2 goals in almost every 6 games so either we lose most weeks or scrape a draw one in every 4 or so. Relegation form all day long. And is Carsley likely to change that given his personality or ambition? No, not for me either.
We’re in a mess that we have to start to get out of this side of Christmas so please do what needs to happen, get rid of Carsley or demote back to Development squad, get a known football man in for this year alone if necessary and sort the defence as a first priority to give us at least a basis of a clean sheet to try to score 1 goal to win a game.
Worrying months but I’m sure exciting times will be back again soon if we act now.
Hate being so negative after the last few seasons of so much to be positive about but surely given the chance to look at things again, we can do better than offer the main job to a man who didn’t ‘hold his hands up for it’ and the day after our Chairman, Cliff Crown, abley assisted by the 2 co-directors of football in Rasmussen Ankerson and the Smart Odds director whose name escapes me right now, stated that we had all found the main man we were looking for to carry this new belief and ethnic through, then a day later sounds completely stupid when he stated that he wasn’t a party to this agreement or want it at all. Can one hand start telling the other what it’s doing or at least let the arse know what the elbow is doing or we continue to look stupid as a club and are letting the fans down hugely with these snippets of information that mean absolutely nothing to us if he actions aren’t backed up later by them.
2 week window to sort out our sh*t Brentford because what we have witnessed this season and in particular, even more so these last 2 league games with Carsley in charge, has been exactly that. Sh*t!!
Let’s start to make correct decisions and not have smug as you like quotes from Cliff Crown or a tweet from Ankerson of a picture of a game he has finally attended, or any other drivel or nonsense about FC Mjitlland appearing on OUR clubs website, just Brentford related matters and correct decisions from now on in…..PLEASE!!!
Get in Steve Evans.
Reinstate the real manager position, scrap current powerless puppet job, which has failed.
Well said. For me, the PR team have already made too many faux pas and they are the ones that should be leaving the club. Marinus should not have been sacked. He should have at least had the chance to get to Xmas. These directors of football Rasmus and Phil Giles keep talking about doing things for “the long term stability of the club” yet have only succeeded in short term “fixes” (ironic use of the word!). And what are all these specialised coaches doing? Sleep coach, set ball coach, pyschology coach (i’ve never seen a more dejected bunch of sports people, apart from England players at Twickenham last night!) et al. We need some steel and direction now, otherwise, like you say, all this good work is going to be rapidly undone.
Well said, Steve. I couldn’t understand why we needed bucketloads of midfielders either! Very sad to see the ripping apart of our club, totally needlessly to add insult to injury. Why has Benham been taken in by the mumbo-jumbo of these so-called gurus?
Benham is the author of the stats vanity project and instigator of the present crisis; the introduction of a healthy combination of “enhanced” sensible stats usage in the context of the best aspects of traditional methods of running BFC, which, if this retained the traditional managerial post and responsibilities for transfers and team selection, etc, could have given beneficial results this season, was stubbornly rejected to force through the gamblers pet project, which he hoped to give him some sort of prestige and immortality, if it worked; well it isn’t and the damage has, unfortunately, already been done and it is going to be very difficult to save BFC from a free fall. With a less fanatical wish to force through his power trip, Benham could have come out looking helpful and wise and we could have retained the services of the best manager at BFC, that we are ever likely to see, MW, for at least another season. Benham’s financial input was great, but he has gone badly wrong by imposing his theories by tearing up a successful management and playing team from last season, to get his way
Question Roderic, do you think Brentford fc would have been better off with or without Matt Benham ?