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Beesotted contributor, James Tippett, gives us his thoughts on Saturday’s clash with Birmingham City at Griffin Park, and looks forward to Tuesday’s visit of Fulham.

I’m sure that many Brentford fans came away from Griffin Park on Saturday with rather mixed emotions towards the 1-1 draw with Birmingham

Having played 74 minutes with 10 men, a draw is a fantastic result, and the Bees dominated for large periods of the match. One would expect the Brentford contingent to be ecstatic. However, we dominated to such an extent that we could have easily won this fixture. In the last 25 minutes we played incredible football and could have easily snatched all three points.

That being said, Birmingham could have been 3-0 up by half time. Button made two incredible saves and the Birmingham forward missed a sitter of a header. Meanwhile we had not yet clocked a single shot on target.

However, this was definitely a fixture that was winnable and had Tony Craig not been sent off I believe we would have been the victors. Seven points from four games sounds a lot better than five points from four games.

I’m not normally one to point a finger at match officials. I believe that being a referee is one of the hardest jobs out there. Not many are scrutinized so heavily by so many in their occupation. In an everyday job you don’t have 10,000+ people critiquing your every decision.

But on two occasions now Bees fans have felt hard done by by the refereeing of Mr Madley. Whether it being penalty appeals, corner decisions or free kicks, the man in charge seemed to be making poor decisions left, right and centre.
The Birmingham penalty was probably justified, and perhaps too the red card. But other than that there were bad decisions galore! Andre Gray was denied a penalty having been pulled to the ground in the box, before a blatant trip by a Birmingham defender in the second half was also waved away.

Lee Clark said that it looked like Brentford had an extra man because of the way we played. In reality however, Birmingham had the extra two men! Nonetheless, it was a valiant performance by Brentford.
So which Bees players stood out?

Odubajo looked a revelation when he came on. Playing in a changed position at Right-back (although more of a right winger) he took the game by storm, and obviously scored the equaliser.

Douglas had another great game, controlling the flow of the match from his position just infront of the back four. His consistency is remarkable.

Button kept us in the match with two or three quality stops. He has had a good few games, making some great saves; although he perhaps could have stopped both the goal against Charlton and the goal against Blackpool.

Pritchard looked lively in the second half, as did Dallas when he came on. Gray made some great touches, and I’m sure that if he had got half a chance he would have buried it. Judge also had a good game, while our back four did well to prevent Donaldson from making any real impact other than the winning of the penalty.

Overall it was a very pleasing performance from the Bees.

Looking forward to Tuesday, I expect us to be strong favourites at Home against a floundering Fulham team. A nervous looking Magath, speaking after a 5-1 hammering Away to Derby, said that their new system “needed time”. Well, they have three days until they make the short trip to Griffin Park in search of their first win this season.

I cannot wait to hear the booming sound of “Bees up, Fulham down” echo around Griffin Park. It should be a momentous occasion. Then into the Third Round where the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City await.

With regards to the Championship Marathon, Brentford are still making steady progress. As we pass the 2 mile mark, we draw closer to the end of the transfer window. Warburton has done good business and we don’t seem to be looking to bring in any more new faces.

The one question mark left is over the future of Adam Forshaw, but with each passing day it is looking more likely that he will stay. That is until January, at least.

The upcoming fixtures are winnable and hopefully we can break into the top half with a few good performances. Some runners are starting to gain momentum, while others are starting to struggle.

In these early stages, hopefully we can start to build on what has been a solid start.

James Tippett