Brentford’s form hit rock bottom against Charlton at Griffin Park, with The Addicks recording their first win of 2016 – a result that had some home fans booing at the final whistle.
Following on from last weekend’s defeat at lowly Rotherham, it was important for Dean Smith and his side to put in a decent performance, however, on this showing, there is little evidence to suggest we aren’t in for a tough time between here and the end of the season.
This is relegation form from Brentford… thankfully we should have just enough in the tank to see us clear of any real drama even if things don’t improve dramatically. The spark has gone, the flair is missing and the desire to win looks to be evaporating.
One down after 20 seconds was not what the doctor ordered, and although the home side leveled through Barbet’s header – a poignant goal scored during the minute’s applause for Dean Langford as the sun also came out on a grey, cold afternoon – there was a ground-hog day feel about this disjointed performance.
Marco Djuricin, then Lasse Vibe and Philipp Hofmann, looked flaccid and didn’t manage a decent chance between them – and with Sergi Cannos subbed – there were chants of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ directed towards Dean Smith. Harsh? Perhaps. Understandable? Certainly.
By that stage bottom club Charlton had retaken the lead, and just a week before the highly anticipated trip to Loftus Road, there is a gloomy atmosphere growing among the Griffin Park faithful. Quite why this desperately disappointing form continues is a mystery – Wolves were dispatched with a flea in their ears a little over a week ago, but since then, instead of the victory providing a springboard into a pool of safety, the Bees players look to be drowning in the deep end.
As you will hear from the Pride of West London Post Match Podcast, and in the Beesotted Video (links above), there were more strong opinions voiced in and around Griffin Park after the match – and few can argue that there are big questions to answer right now – as well as improvements to be made in almost every department.
The trip to Queens Park Rangers next Saturday is a real benchmark moment in my view – the weak performances and defeats to Rotherham and Charlton are hard enough to fathom – but if the players don’t wear the Brentford badge with honour, and the coaches don’t pump them up to put in a rousing 90 minutes at Loftus Road, I fear a bit of a back-lash.
Follow, follow, follow, we’re going to Loftus Road… Make us proud Brentford, make us proud!
Dave Lane
@beesotted100
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Without a shadow of a doubt we are in total freefall the performance matched the freezing conditions “cold miserable and as damp as a squib” With the clubs guvnors pulling all the strings with regards selling the cogs that made the machine work ,we are now playing just about as well as a Division 2 mid table side . If we were a few places lower in the table wed be the best bet for relegation fodder .What can Dean Smith hope to do bring in more loanee players which surely tells us that we have an abundance of players who just arent good enough ( an we all know who takes the responsibilty for bringing them in ,in the first place )What hope have we got in securing the King of the team services next season of course im talking about Judgy . Hes like a one man team . Finally this is where tightrope begins to wobble weve lost the cogs of the machine .and if we loose Alan Judge weve lost the whole bloomin engine ,us fans have lost all faith , season tickets for next year ? no thanks its like paying to watch an old friend dying .
If Dean Smith was called something else, something like say Marinus Djikhousen, then I’m certain that there would be far more fans saying already at this stage of proceedings, that he clearly doesn’t “know the English game” or “he’s not up to it” but it’s surprising what an English sounding name buys you because right now, with the same team that Lee Carsley also supposedly ‘inherited’, like some of the comments on the video, we have not only made absolutely zero progress since Dean Smith’s arrival but have gone markedly backwards and the manner of the defeats are totally unacceptable.
The fitness levels of the team (Wolves aside) are rock bottom, team spirit is simply non-existent and Smiths influence on anything whatsoever, both on and off the pitch is also completely anonymous from what I can see. His comments after yesterday’s game about creating chances and personally naming those that missed them, do not help anyone at all and another worrying thing was the ‘trying to get in a loan player’ but failing. Whether this is down to Smith not having the contact base of say Warburton or Carsley or simply our other 2 absolutely invisible in any sort of way, for the job titles they possess of Co-Directors of Football I do not know, or possibly the money from the owner, starting to get a little thin on the ground after the legal fight to get businesses off the site for Lionel Road build, something that is also stalling in a big way with very little feedback from the media department of the club.
All in all a season to forget but very possibly a few names to also forget in Brentfords recent history, maybe Deans added to the list, alongside Rasmus Ankerson and Phil Giles. A small, polite thanks but no thanks and a start to the pre-season with hopefully much more success in our sadly failing recruitment policy.
I would like to think we have enough to give ourselves another year in this division and don’t get me wrong, I am truly grateful for Mathew Benham to put us in a position to even compete against other big name teams but the minimum you expect from anyone who wears the shirt with the badge, who train all week with what were told is high intensity, is to run and run and run and give 100% effort and do not stop til the final whistle. Anything else can be forgiven but I am sadly witnessing like all our supporters are, a distinct lack of interest and unforgivable stopping from certain players, most notably in defensive positions, before the ball has even crossed our goal line, which it does on far far too many occasions. When our ‘excellent’ backroad staff sit down and show the individual players their own build up actions to our goals conceded, I’m afraid the tired old tow the party line comment of “we’ll learn from our mistakes” grates me to the bone listening to it. We simply don’t. And it grates me as much as Dean Smiths bloody grey trousers he wears each week, with a tracksuit top. Aarrgghhhh! Rant over.
Thank you for the last 3/4 years of wonderful, attacking, exciting football which has been a pleasure to witness and easily the best period of time to be a Brentford fan in my lifetime but this season, lacking in passion and the quality simply not there, it’s very hard to swallow.
Sorry for being so negative but the last 11 or 12 performances on the pitch, have been as negative as Dean Smiths personality and influence since he arrived. Where is the ever so popular fan forum where the 2 co-directors, the manager, Cliff Crown and other assorted hierarchy will explain that everything in the camp is rosy before making a big cull a few days later? May I suggest, if we manage to ever find Ankerson and Giles, if they haven’t totally disappeared in Mjitlland or up their own backsides, that they be the first couple of “excellent” appointments to do the right thing and fall on their swords, swiftly followed by the management of the shambles since Carsley deserted our ways.
Come on you Bees!! (Half heartedly for the rest of the year)
The writing was on the wall in Jan 2015 when the news broke about Warburton. What happened over the summer was exactly the same as David Webb in 95 – Asset stripping. It does not matter who the manager is when you sell your best players and replace them with inferior ones you are going to struggle. The excuse was we have to comply with financial fair play regulations, if this is true then we cannot compete at championship level. It has been proven that the ambition of the last 3 years was Warburton’s and not Benham’s. Warburton seemed to have that knack of spotting talent, a computer does not. The system that Benham has adopted will never work for one reason relegation. In America there is no relegation so you have time to build up a squad of players to be a successful unit but in England when you get relegated you will lose your better players and you have to start again. We have a squad of players who would struggle to get promoted in league one, the star performers this season were all players that were around last season and who thinks Judge and Button will be around next season? We did not have to sell as many players and only one player we did not have a say over because Hull had triggered Moses’s Clause in his contract. The backroom staff said at the time these players wanted to go but none has asked WHY they wanted to go. Footballers are not stupid they no when a club goes in a different direction it may not suit them. Rosler/Warburton assembled a very exciting, young and ambitious squad of players that gained a lot of admirers last season. This season there was a change of direction and the club left ambition ii its wake. If you are a player with ambition seeing what is going on then you will look to leave at the earliest opportunity. I just hope the backroom staff sort this out and start recruiting players that have character as well as potential. What has gone on this season is not any managers fault but the decisions of Mathew Benham and only he is responsible. Ever heard of the saying ‘do not fix what is not broken’
Stephen I disagree with Smith having the same team as Carsley as Tarks & Toums have gone and McCormack has missed many recent games injured & I feel his tenacity has been sorely missed. That said I was disappointed with Dean Smiths post match comments which I feel do nothing to promote team confidence.
If Swift would have earned a penalty by going down surely the fault is with the Ref for taking the easy option rather than Swift being naïve. Don’t forget he got a yellow in an earlier game when there was contact & quite possibly could have been a penalty If Swift gets a reputation for diving it could dog his whole career.
The last time we were at this level 20 odd years ago lasting only one season as I recall we were comfortably placed into the new year then slipped steadily down the table to be relegated on the last day. Lets all pull together to avoid that thi time.
Matthew Benham is a gambler and now he is doing so with our beloved club, his ideas are clearly flawed and I now question his motives !!! All the adverse comments made in the media are now proving justified and we have gone backwards at an alarming rate, I don’t blame Smith but he certainly does not inspire confidence.For several seasons we have played a 4-5-1 system without the playing personnel that suits it, Vibe is a player but is clearly disenchanted with the playing style whereas Djuricin isn’t fit to wear the shirt and Hoffmann totally useless. Machearan is pedestrian and like Swift can’t or wont tackle and like George Saville neither should have a future at BFC. Alan Judge is a ONE MAN TEAM and heaven knows what he must think and where the next point is coming from !!!!!!!
The next points will be ‘Home’ to Port Vale next season in League 1. All due respect to Port Vale.
Terry Middlemass has summed it all up for us. I’ve been going to Griffin Park since 1961 and my friends and I who sit together have had the same seats for years and have travelled all over the country following the Bees, we all have long journeys now to home games and this season has become a chore and not a pleasure !!!
Whilst I’m not keen on us getting Premiership football and don’t care about a new ground particularly for certain should we go down I will not be renewing my season ticket next season and in fact I will not be back at all. BFC has always been tagged with lacking ambition and so it proves, Matthew you have led us all ”down the garden path”.
Ian,so you have been coming to Griffin park since the 60s,like me you’ve had to watch some dross football over the years,some of those fighting re election to the football league,many a season became a chore, how come you didnt throw the towel in then,Just trying to put some perspective on things.
That’s easy to answer, after all those years of disappointment, failure, dishonesty al la David Webb, lack of ambition al la Martin Lange, blowing it under Coppell and Martin Allen, we finally achieved something and did so in style, I’m not going back to watching the same old boring mainly Northern Teams full of cloggers that comprise League 1, making the journey that I do and paying for it into the bargain. I’ve had way too much of that.
We’d certainly be interested in your views on the Matthew Benham interview today Ian.
How can I access this then, happy to watch and comment.
It’s on this website Ian… the one that’s called Matthew Benham Interview
Thanks for that, I’ve read the interview and appreciate MB’s honesty and admission that mistakes have been made, but some of them were obvious from the start !!!
The lack of information from BFC with regard to the New Stadium has worried everyone and this issue remains, what is going on and indeed is it still going on ???
I don’t believe however that we have the lowest revenue in the Championship and I have seen nothing at all from Djuricin nor Hoffman to suggest that they have any talent or that we had them watched before we signed them, both are lamentable. Sorry that in addition I do not believe we should sign John Swift should the opportunity arise.
I have never booed any players nor have I heard this from my seat in Braemar Road, but yes we all had a bit of a go at the end of the Charlton match and the current atmosphere at GP could be described as it has been in the media as ”Hostile”.
However this current team is NOT a Championship side and as I’ve written on here myself a lot of us simply cannot contemplate League 1 football ever again yet can’t see where another point is coming from.
Nobody I know really blames Dean Smith, but why do we keep playing 4-5-1 without the personnel required,Vibe is a good player and should be up front with Canos in a 4-4-2, if you are going to start with the likes of Djuricin alone up front then you will continue to get stick from the faithful.
Ian.