Beesotted contributor, and former Birmingham Mail journalist, Jim Levack, takes stock of a morale-boosting night’s footy under the Black Country floodlights.
There’s something a bit special about being part of an elite group going behind enemy lines to plunder three points, especially when it’s against the odds.
I know a lot of Wolves fans from my time working at the Birmingham Mail, so the win had an extra special feel to it.
But most importantly this was a result that came pretty much out of the blue to anyone outside the club, making it just that little bit sweeter.
I predicted a 0-0 draw and would have been happy with that after seeing enough in the Rotherham win to suggest that Lee Carsley was making an impression.
I felt before the trip to the Black Country that some of the comments after the Rotherham game were slightly unfair… after all, there’s rarely ever an attractive flowing game of football against them.
From the outset at Wolves, we looked a lot more ‘on it’, pressing sensibly, passing crisply and looking more creative around the box than we have all season.
Confidence plays a big part in football. We had it and what little Wolves had at the kick off diminished rapidly, turning their notoriously fickle fans against them and in turn inspiring Brentford.
Carsley has instilled a different, more British mentality among the players. He started with a more home-grown feel to the side, but knew when to introduce the new recruits to maximum effect, Hofmann finding space that could have seen him bag a couple on another day.
That’s how it should have been at the start of the season – a gradual introduction rather than a wholesale change. If the team above Carsley have now accepted that and tweaked things accordingly, then that’s excellent management.
I still believe too much weight sits on the shoulders of Alan Judge creatively, but to be fair he’s revelling in his new role as the string-puller in chief with an incredible work rate to back it up.
Nico Yennaris is another example of Carsley’s intelligent handling of the squad. He’s clearly been told that this is his time, the shirt is his as long as his performances match up. As if to reinforce that message Josh Clarke has been sent out on loan to further his education.
Apart from one rush of blood to the head when he charged forward and almost got caught out at Wolves, he has put in two high intensity defensive displays and managed to get forward at the right times.
Carsley reintroduced Toumani fresh to the fray and he was imperious alongside the effervescent Ryan Woods, who again rarely wasted a pass, closed down quickly and tackled back with verve.
The two centre backs – one or two aerial misjudgements aside – won everything and epitomised the determination to lay their bodies on the line for the cause.
The only downside was a second half 20 minute spell where Brentford failed to look after the ball effectively enough, inviting Wolves on to them… even if they did cope with the attacks easily enough.
The arrival of Philipp Hofmann helped with the hold up play, but just as importantly he showed he is coming to terms with the physicality of the English game and took his goal with ice-cool aplomb… proof that he could well make the transition to the English game.
Game management for the final five or so minutes was excellent as Brentford appeared quicker in thought and action than their free-spending League One promotion fellows.
Most impressive though was the passing for much of the game. Neat, tidy, inventive, quick and incisive where necessary, Wolves simply had no answer to it.
In his post Rotherham press conference Carsley mentioned that the good 20 minutes would become 30, 40 and 50 as confidence grew. Here was the proof.
Now it’s on to Charlton where Brentford are – and this sounds good – the form team.
That in itself can be a monkey on the back, but in Lee Carsley I believe we now have a manager who has seen too much in his time in the game to allow the green shoots of recovery to fade as quickly as they came.
There is still much work to be done, injured players to be nursed back and maybe even a little more pace and guile to be added to the mix, but this is a good start that is leaving a nice glow around me the day after the night before.
Now, all that’s left to be done is to have a quick catch up with Paul Berry, my old Mail colleague who is now Head of Media at Wolves… now where did I put his number?
Jim Levack
Very good article, Jim.
It’s been a long-time since my last Brentford-induced good mood, but despite insufficient sleep I’m buzzing about the result this morning.
It was a diligent, grown-up performance from us last night, not particularly high on flair after an excellent first 20 minutes (I’m enjoying these fast starts under Carsley in sharp contrast to the Dijkhuizen era).
What pleased me most was the unity of the team. The midfield protected the defence brilliantly while also giving excellent service to Djuricin, and later Hoffman. So often this season there has been no cohesion between different parts of the team. It’s almost impossible to pick a man of the match given the nature of the performance, but the level-headed combination of Diagouraga and McCormack was undoubtedly crucial. They made it impossible for Wolves to play through us. We were very compact.
As you mentioned there are still concerns, especially the reliance on Judge for creativity. And Wolves were dreadful – significantly worse, I would suggest, than the team that took them up from League One.
Like you, I take particular pleasure from beating Wolves. Over the last three years we have followed almost identical paths and so, despite their huge resources compared with us, they are a good barometer of our progress. The 4-0 win over them was my favourite result of last season, bar the Fulham wins.
One more thing – fair play to Carsley for getting something out of Yennaris, on whom I had long since given up hope. Let’s hope he can have a similar impact on some of the new signings.
“Wolves were dreadful”; so I wouldn’t get too excited about this result; Hofmann is wooden, Judge is a gleam of hope.
They were at home and you still have to beat sides like that… never easy at Wolves.
They were low on confidence like we were before Rotherham, but bottom line is you can only beat what’s put in front of you.
We know we are still short on quality and possibly pace, but disagree re Hofmann… he is big, a nuisance and clearly has decent feet for a big fellah as his very cool finish showed.
Six points out of six will do for me but we have to be winning our next two games as well for this to be anything more than a false dawn.
The point of my piece was that Lee Carsley is a seasoned campaigner in the English league and just what we need right now – a good foil between the new stats-led system and traditional methods.
And his approach appears to be working… at the moment.
Don’t waste words on him Jim,he is top of the league for negativity along with a guy called Rodi, supporters my arse, come to think of it suspect they are one and the same.Either that ones the others love child.
hobo, you have nothing but fanatic empty drivel to say, or nasty attacks on contributors who have the individual view, unlike you, who is a lick spittle to the party line; you moronic slave, you never offer a scrp of original thinking or analysis of the facts, people like you, who hate free opinion, are the arse scrapings of the world and are the coat tailers of tyranny.
No worse than your nasty attacks on a man that saved our football club and continues to do so, at least the real fans at Charlton who were chanting his name appreciate what hes done and is doing for our football club. By the way its only you and Rodi i have a problem with,your both tarred with the same poisonous brush your last posting being proof of that.
Apparently we beat QPR too. Excellent.
This is now getting awkward as some folk are having less and less to moan about.
Djuricin scored a well taken goal too.
You don’t wanna go up Brentford.