It was all about lucky number 7(seven) yesterday. Or not so lucky for some. Brentford finally laid that Middlesbrough hoodoo to rest, Birmingham City came oh-so close to being on the wrong end of a bracketing whilst as for Crystal Palace. Well… With Matthew Benham’s comments on Tuesday night about moaners still fresh in our ears, anybody not overly happy with the Bees may want to look towards Selhurst Park.
But we can only start at the Riverside where the Bees took a first ever Championship point off Middlesbrough after those well documented six, straight losses. Arguably, we could well have returned South with all three. Hats off to the 332 supporters who made the long shlep up to the Riverside. Oh to have had the opportunity to be amongst them. Instead, it was their social media updates, commentary and the Sky Sports scrolly thing for those all important goal scores.
What can you say? Wow. 2-2 and genuine disappointment not to have got the win seem to be the order of the day. Chris Mepham followed up his midweek appearance with a full 90 minutes alongside opening goal scorer Yoann Barbet. The common consensus was of another rock solid performance and a potential star in the making. If they’re good enough, they’re old enough (or whatever the phrase is). What could have been a baptism of fire has shown once more the talent pool bubbling away under the surface of the B-team. Get it wrong as we did against Norwich in the cup, and overloading a team with newbies can be a disaster. Do it right and we get a wonderful glimpse of the future.
A full league debut to remember for Chris
Twice Brentford took the lead. Twice Middlesbrough hauled it back to level things up. Ollie Watkins scored again, aswell as setting up the first. Yoann, Chris and captain (for the last quarter) Daniel Bentley were amongst those to later express their disappointment at not quite hanging on for the win. Perhaps, but just getting the psychological monkey of unbeatable Middlesbrough off the back can only be a wonderful thing. Putting in another performance that sees us creeping up the table with five points out of the last nine can only be a huge stride in the right direction for this season.
As ever, Sky Sports have the immediate highlights and you can catch them here. As ever, Mark Burridge will provide a much better flavour once the mid-day embargo is lifted.
Sadly, no comms but plenty of passion on pitch.
So great chances, great creation and more penalties denied. We certainly don’t get the run with the refs. Talking this morning to one terrace wag who had made the trip she noted, “I thought they looked better yesterday in terms of intention and actual likelihood to score. Rather than chances that aren’t chances.”
The real challenge now is turning these performances into wins. There can’t be many amongst us who wouldn’t have taken five points if offered them at 2.59 last Saturday before we kicked off against Bolton. I would have. That win, followed by the draw with Derby and yesterday’s result all well and good. The one word of caution being that the Bees are very much the divisional draw specialists . Only Fulham and Bristol City (5) come close to our 6 from 11. Even looking further afield in the Football league we are still top of the draw table.
Yoann – thought we should have got more
Next up, International break. Hopefully a chance for Andreas, Sergi and Lasse to get back to fitness. A hope that the injury which saw Rico Henry leave the field of play early isn’t as bad as feared. Whilst Josh Clarke filled in ably at left back, Tom Field is now tied in at Bradford until Christmas. Could we be dipping back into that B-team once more?
And then, back to back home games. Visits from Millwall and Sunderland are, on paper, a chance for Brentford to further continue that climb up the table. Of locking down that Championship status for a fifth season. For all our improving form we are still just a point above Birmingham City who still reside in the basement zone. Turning form and performance into clear air will only be a good thing.
As for Birmingham, well we’ve had a bit more of an interest in them than normal on these pages in recent weeks. For obvious reasons. And yesterday saw their brave new world further hit the skids as Hull City put six goals past the hapless Blues defence. I won’t deny bristling with anticipation as, at 6-0 down, another goal was reported for the KC stadium. Sadly, it wasn’t the bracket busting 7(seven) for Hull but, instead, a proverbial consolation. But it does show what a difference GD could make with the Blues (-12) Burton (-17) and Bolton (-18) effectively another point behind the Bees (-2).
Will the Bees compete at this level for a fifth season? Could Birmingham avoid a slide into League One. Will Crystal Palace be joining us in the Championship next campaign? Should the Bees keep on heading up the table then we are likely to be joined by the Eagles. Despite a change of manager, yesterday’s 4-0 loss at Manchester United sees their Premier League record for the 2017/18 campaign read:
P7 W0 D0 L7 Goals For 0 Goals Against 17 GD -17.
A record of 0-0-7(seven) with no goals scored is the stuff of nightmares. And James Bond puns. Next up, a visit from Chelsea. Should the Eagles mange to make the net ripple, I can only assume it will be very much a Victor Tourjansky moment.
However bad Brentford fans think we may have it at times, there’s always somebody worse off.
And then some…
And Palace have scored…. Victor Tourjansky does his thing
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 
A point at Boro is something to rejoice, and a well deserved one too. The Monk Boro is clearly a different kettle of fish to the anti-football Karanka Boro, and one we are more suited to playing.against. This is a results business and 5 points from 3 games is a marked improvement from the disastrous start and hopefully will now use this international break wisely and work on a Plan B & C. Hopefully Rico’s injury is not as bad as first feared. I was very impressed with him against Derby and could see how he has been developing with us. With Tom Field unavailable to the new year it gives Ilias an incredible opportunity to stake a claim if Rico is out for a few weeks.
It is rather a joy to see Birmingham doing so poorly. It doesnt look like Harlee is particularly popular with the Blues fans and is getting much of the blame, and with that dinosaur Steve Cotterill now in charge you feel that the Birmingham City comedy still has a rather funny ending to come.
Very impressed with Chris Mepham’s mature performance. He must have run Ollie Watkins very close as the Bees man of the match.
Brilliant result (and by all accounts performance) and yet again, shockingly bad refereeing decisions (still we would have missed the penalty anyway!). Why do most of the men in black turn a blind eye to us, and why has refereeing standards in general got noticeably worse? Seems we are constantly playing 12 men. Anyway…big well done to the Bees on this latest of draws. That one actually felt pretty good. Oh and Derby did the same to Cardiff yesterday and the bluebirds couldn’t score against them so lets put our 1 – 1 into perspective.
Ironically this was the first SG1 ref we have had for a good couple of years in the League. Also Twitter reveals that Boro supporters felt that the Wigan ref was very anti them as well. All in all Mr Tierney was rubbish all round.
Kings X, Baker St, Beesotted boys,Twisted Lip, Riverside, deserved point, p!ssp@@r ref, fantastic Bees fans, back to Kings X, home…..what a great day out…..
Buongiorno a tutti e grazie per aver citato il grande Victor Tourjansky – Man with Bottle 007 Movies Series.
Grazie a tutti.
Marco Bomba e Eleonora Tourjansky
Thank you. We LOVE Victor on these pages 🙂