Leeds United 1 Brentford 0. With other results going the way of the chasing pack, the Bees were unable to capitalise on an opportunity to narrow the gap to sixth place and so remain four points shy, in tenth place. Yet our own next game could be as much impacted by a Sunday lunchtime encounter between Cardiff City and Bristol City. Victory for the Bluebirds will put them to within a mere six points of a table topping Wolves team who slipped up again yesterday.
There was no way through this time. Sadly.
Some of us came. They saw. Leeds conquered. What can you really add about a game where only a relative handful of away fans were there to report back? Needing a second mortgage to attend a football match will do that to you. Information was further limited by Brentford ‘official’ noting on Twitter that: “Apologies for the lack of updates so far, you’d have thought at £44 a ticket, the wifi might work … “
For the record, the key incidents seem to be a solitary goal that had an apparent element of offside. A possible penalty not given against Neal Maupay. A red card missed against Ezgjan Alioski, which had Dean in fighting form at Full Time.
He told iFollow that the player threw his arm at Yoann Barbet, adding: “How that can be just a yellow card I don’t know. At times today, the officials could have come off the pitch and the game could have been refereed by the Elland Road crowd.”
Tough words indeed. Here’s hoping Dean has kept the right side of league sanction for speaking his mind and saying what he thought so clearly. It was a game that not unusually, Dean didn’t think we deserved to lose. He also cited the quality of the pitch, specifically specifically the long grass, although also acknowledged our shortcomings when summarising that, “On our second-half performance we didn’t deserve to win anything but we didn’t deserve to lose the game”.
So perhaps a draw would have been a fair result? Certainly the stats bear that out although as we’ve said so many times about possession and shots relative to finding the back of the net….
You can read, and subscribers see, Dean’s comments in full on Brentford ‘official’ They’re up there now and you can find them here.
Leeds United also took to Twitter after this one. If we’d been guilty of moaning about their wi-fi there can be no complaints about their own Full Time hi-jinks. Moreso , given Tuesday night’s fun at Griffin Park. If you can’t take it then don’t give it.
The highlights, all 1.01 of them, are on Sky now. Don’t expect any of the controversial decisions or close ups of the pitch though. Will update these pages with the Mark Burridge version, once that goes live after mid-day. Hopefully there’ll be a little more meat to pick off the bones of this one then.
That said, catching up with our commentator par-excellence this morning his own considered opinion on this one is that it was: “A tight, dull and cagey affair. The game changed on another poor performance from Oliver Langford, who IMHO should have shown Alioski a red for his swinging arm on Barbet, followed by an goal that is clearly offside. We were well on top at this time.
Having said that our response was poor, we looked weary, the subs seemed to have a negative impact and we looked a if a long week have taken its toll. We need to start digging out points when we are below par in games like these. I’m sure lessons will have been learned from yesterday and we need to win on Saturday against Cardiff to get back on track.”
Next up, Cardiff City. If results went Brentford’s way, then equally they are suddenly in much better place than a week or so back. Wolves have hit the skids (DDL in their last three) as the gap between the runaway leaders and the rest has started to narrow. Cardiff are now 9 points off with this lunchtime’s game in hand at home to Bristol City to come. Victory there will not only help their own automatic/title aspirations whilst also give a boost to those just outside the play off zone, where The Robins occupy the final berth.
The downside to this being that a morale boosting win for Neil Warnock’s men will set them up very nicely for next weekend. Yet if Brentford are to have any hope of our own dreams coming true, we need to keep pace with our rivals and then beat whomever comes up next. And if that means hoping for a Cardiff win today, then c’est la vie.
As one final thought, spare a thought for Birmingham City. No, please. With other results going any way but theirs, The Blues own capitulation at home to Barnsley saw them overtaken by the Tykes in the relegation six-pointer at St. Andrews.
Just when they thought things couldn’t get any worse after Tuesday night, they have. The Blues now join Sunderland and Burton in the bottom three.
There’s nothing much more to say. Leeds may have beaten us but every cloud….
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 
Hi Nick,
Re:- Leeds game.
Sketchy first 5 minutes from both sides. Next 25 dominated by Brentford. Then the Leeds offside goal which completely changed the game although Brentford managed to hang on until half time. 2nd half – Our season long failings came to the fore. The Leeds players had obviously been told to ‘get in our faces’ and we struggled to cope (as usual) with the result that we had as many misplaced passes from us as I’ve seen this season. Can’t agree with Dean Smith that we deserved to get something from the game. Although I hate to say it, we have to get much better at the ‘nastier’ side of the game.
Regards,
Ted Soudan
I saw the game on YouTube just after the goal onwards and I just didnt feel we were really in this. Lots of possession without an end result. In fact i think I only saw one half decent shot from us. Leeds did their homework, closed us down high up the pitch and defended well. Yes, the subs didnt add much but then again they came on when we wernt offering much anyway. Too many stray passes. Defence being caught out, although I though Bjelland was excellent. I would still bring Mepham back into the side. We looked tired & devoid of ideas. Whatever it was about possible sendings off, offside goals or the length of the grass, the truth is we just wernt good enough. Lets cross that one off and move on to next week.
I bought a very expensive ticket for the Leeds game but I was sorely disappointed by our performance. The first 30 minutes demonstrated that they were there for the taking. I said to the guy I sitting next to me that we would pay for the lack of a goal from our dominance of the play. So it proved to be although clearly the goal was well offside, this was obvious to everyone apart from Mr Langford and his idiot linesman with the yellow flag who was right in line with the Leeds forwards. Having said that I have to agree that we didn’t do anything in the second half. We looked tired and made too many errors around the Leeds 18 yard box. The subs had very little positive impact on the game. At the end the Leeds crowd were going mad and I had to remind my Leeds mates in the pub afterwards that they had only beaten “little old Brentford” not Juventus in the semi final of the European Cup! I Alison agree with the summary points made by BQ and it will be interesting to see how we respond positively next week when we play the consummate football spoilers of Cardiff City.
I have long felt that the changes made to the off-side law over the years have been largely detrimental. In this particular case it may well be that the goal scorer was the least off-side of three Leeds players and being at the far side was obscured from the view of the official. No doubt that VAR would have changed the outcome.
Whilst I often have doubts in the wisdom of some of Dean Smiths comments I found it strange that our friends in the North thought him wrong to criticise the condition of the pitch not because his assessment was wrong but because it was apparently worse last week.