New video footage shines different light on worst dive ever.

There’s no Premier League action for Brentford until next and the trips to Southampton / Liverpool. We’ve got the FA Cup this weekend but before then we’ve got the last knockings from the Aston Villa game at the weekend. Of course, that ended with both a 2-1 win for the Bees and a last second piece of hammy theatrics from Trézéguet so blatant, so sub-Rivaldo and just so ludicrous as to earn mockery from all over the internet and beyond. Even Match Of The Day 2 laying in to the most cringe inducing dive since Greg Louganis at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. It was a dive which produced an unexpected delivery to the Last Word inbox. Namely, new video footage of the incident that you’ll absolutely want to see.

How it appeared at first

First up, we’ve got the player ratings for Brentford. The ongoing quest to see who will end the season as our outstanding performer aswell as looking at the top five individual ratings on a game by game basis. The Aston Villa results can be found here. If nothing else, we’ve been given a clue as to how the team for Southampton may well look.

Brentford Player Ratings – Gameweek 19

Then, just when the weekend looked like if had drawn to a close we had more. Specifically, more Trézéguet. And no, this wasn’t the picture of him spark out on a plane, accompanying Liverpool legend Mo Salah to the African Cup of Nations.

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah & Aston Villa's Trézéguet sharing a private plane to #AFCON as they prepare to join up with the Egypt squad 🇪🇬✈️ pic.twitter.com/hqAOsY3JjC

— Liverpool FC News (@LivEchoLFC) January 3, 2022

Instead, a mystery benefactor sent through additional footage of the Trézéguet incident. Whilst most fans are hoping for some retrospective punishment, has the Aston Villa man been wronged?

Was there outside influence from the much touted ‘sniper in the crowd’ theory?

Or was it just a shit dive?

We’ll never know because the Premier League have since had it taken down after close on 50,000 views. Their call. Instead, we’ve gone for a different take – namely, an artist’s impression of events.

Over to you….

Nick Bruzon

Heroes and Villans at Lionel Road. Was this the worst dive ever?

Brentford are now half way through a first Premier League campaign that finds the Bees on 23 points and as close to the Champions League spots as we are the the relegation zone (a difference of 12 in either direction). The first game of 2022 seeing a 2-1 victory in a pulsating game with Aston Villa. A game where the Bees started weighed down by lethargy but ended it on fire. So much so that cringey last minute theatrics were brought into play but, thankfully, the officials were not fooled by the sniper in the crowd. Saman Ghoddos being a good yard away from Trézéguet as the Villa man pulled off the worst piece of acting since Mrs. Brown’s Boys graced our screens. A dive Tom Daley would have been proud of. Now, its onwards and upwards to Southampton and then Liverpool….

A sniper takes aim. Surely…..

Talk about a game of two halves. Brentford were awful at first. Slow. Disintersted. Leaden. One North stand observer would explain afterwards how she spent he first half hour doing her accounts on spreadsheet whilst her other half spent the time watching , well…. What he was watching was best summarised as: somebody from the world of music watching his son watching the flight tracker app on his mobile phone. I know Villa were hard to beat but it wasn’t that bad an opening period, was it?

A change in starting XI seeing Sergi in for Dominic Thompson (bench) and Mads Roerslev continuing at right wing back. Kris Ajer was, at least, on the bench with Mads Bech retaining his place in the middle. A midfield trio of Frank the Tank, Christian Norgaard and Matthias Jensen supporting Wissa and Ivan Toney up top. Shandon Baptiste making way. Only Mads Bech keeping us in it during a ghastly first 40 minutes.

Danny Ings produced the opening goal with little more than a quarter hour gone. Emi Buendia, our scourge of last season, producing a moment of absolute brilliance in the middle of the park to open up the Brentford midfield and release Ings. The Aston Villa man making no mistake with an inch perfect drive that squeezed between the despairing finger tips of Alvaro Fernandez and the far post. 1-0 Villa and it could, probably should have been more. Brentford not at the races. Or perhaps we were, because we certainly weren’t at a flat feeling Lionel Road.

Then, the game exploded into life with half-time beckoning. Mads Roerslev exchanging passes with Jensen and then breaking forward down the right. An inch perfect ball across the face of the box found Wissa. One touch, control and then a left footed curler guided home with laser like precision. Martinez in goal left with no hope. That trademark celebration igniting the crowd and his team mates from their slumbers.

Watched this on MOTD2 a few times 🙂

As we’ve said many, many times  – possession and chances are all well and good but the only thing that truly counts is the amount of times the ball has hit the back of the net. Aston Villa should have been out of sight. Instead, it was Steven Gerrard rather than Thomas Frank smashing the tea cups as the opening period ended up 1-1. Brentford with a solitary effort but what a way to take it. What a way to come back to life.

From that point on it was game over. Thomas Frank’s substitutions just heaping the pressure on. First the determined Ghoddos. Here was a man playing for his chance against Southampton. Then Baptiste who gave a masterclass in midfield. His partnership with Norgaard a constant thing of beauty. Chuck in Vitaly for a late cameo and it ended about as good as it can from a playing perspective (certainly, given the options available at present). Then, Mads Roerslev cemented his place in history. Became our 11^th Premier League goal scorer.

With 83 minutes gone, Shandon played it into the box on the diagonal. The overlapping Roerslev leathered it at Martinez who could only push it back into the wing back’s path. There was no mistake with that second bite of the cherry. If Lionel Road had erupted for Wissa, the roof was positively torn off this time around. Oh, my. What a moment. What a sound. What a feeling. What a win, we hoped….

It’s Brentford, innit. Another 7(seven) minutes plus a further five of injury time added on saw Martinez charging up for the last few corner kicks. It had been bad enough against Leeds. Surely lightning couldn’t strike twice? Surely?

It didn’t, as much thanks to the alertness of the officials after Trezeguet had channelled the spirit of Rivaldo as one magnificent save from Alvaro Fernandez. How Ings didn’t level I have no idea but there was our ‘keeper to keep it out at point blank range. The spirit of Elland Road well and truly exorcised.

Fairplay to Villa. They deserved more than their nothing based on effort. One can only imagine the words had Dean Smith been at the helm still. But football hangs on moments. Hangs on goals scored. The simple truth is that Brentford seized theirs and stopped the visitors doing the same. It may have been scrappy at times but there was no disputing the quality of the goals or the phenomenal second half effort. Had we been scuppered by Trézéguet’s blatant cheating late on there may well have been a riot. Thankfully, justice was done.

Next up, the FA Cup trip to Port Vale and then back to back away games in the League. Southampton first and then Liverpool. With the African Cup of Nations seeing the Anfield outfield denied a galaxy of starts, could we be hopeful of taking a minimum four points from these two games? Who knows? Play like we started yesterday and we’ll be coming home from both empty-handed. Play like we finished it and anything is possible…..

The player review is up now and you can find that here. Until then, nothing more to do but reflect on a job well done. The table doesn’t lie. Nor does the scoreline. We’ve been hard done by at home this season when playing out of our skins (Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City in particular). For once, it was nice to see that despite a woeful start, chances can be taken. Points can be earned.

Well played all round. Until then, here’s that dive……..

That is the worst dive I've ever seen from trezeguet😂 man went down like he's been no scoped pic.twitter.com/aJ7rPovoqX

— Jack McGarry (@Jack_McGarry99) January 2, 2022

Nick Bruzon

Is it time for a new badge? Or even an old one?

With all the talk last night surrounding Madonna taking a dive at the Brit awards, football almost passed me by. However, Bournemouth’s defeat to Nottingham Forest, following their 3-1 reverse to Brentford on Saturday, makes for interesting reading at the top of the Championship table. Leaders Derby County and second placed Middlesbrough now have a bit of clear air on the chasing pack with respective gaps of five and three points (plus superior goal difference) to third placed Ipswich Town.

Watching Bournemouth falling faster than the Queen of pop suffering a cape malfunction isn’t particular cause for celebration. They are too strong a team to write off and, indeed, Brentford themselves have just emerged from our own mini blip that saw three defeats out of four . Likewise, for those of us harbouring title hopes , a five point gap can easily be reeled in as evidenced last season when that was the size of our own gap over Wolves at various times.

So I’m not going to get overly hung up on the table top today but, instead, look inward to Griffin Park and another of those post-match pub conversations following the win over Blackpool. Amidst all the nonsense being discussed was one genuine nugget of relevance – the realisation that the current Brentford badge is now in it’s twentieth season of use on our home shirt after first appearing on the red and white during the 1994/95 campaign.

Jamie Bates in the club programme – new shirt and new badge

The badge was designed by supporter Andrew Henning (supposedly in exchange for two season tickets) and it has been a part of our history ever since. Indeed, TV ‘astrologer’ Russell Grant even claimed to have created it himself, telling none other than Clem (of the Football League Show and Clemwatch fame) that, “I designed it, with Keith Loring”.

The current Brentford badge

This somewhat spurious claim (which you can see here, about two minutes in) was made on a Football Focus piece back in 2011. It later transpired that Grant had actually just given guidance on the inclusion of the Middlesex coat of arms found in the bottom left corner.

But this pub conversation did get me thinking all of yesterday. After twenty years, is it time for a change? This current incarnation has now been on our shirts longer than the popular ‘Castle’ badge which first appeared back in 1976. And with the end approaching at Griffin Park, could we reintroduce this as part of a ‘last hurrah’?

The Castle badge appeared (on and off) from 1976-1994)

The Castle was, of course, bumped before when it was replaced on our shirts by the centenary ‘funky bee’ before returning after a season. It was a simple design (certainly a lot less ‘cluttered’ than the current version) and one which has huge emotional significance for supporters of a certain age.

I’d love to see it back and, although it has reappeared on the current ‘retro’ shirt, that version is of a design so big it is rumoured to be the (much like the Great Wall of China) one of the few man made objects visible from space.

But if not the Castle then the other alternative under discussion was one which was first touted this time last year, when it seemed the club were looking to reinvent our first ever badge . Indeed, it got to the point where a garish 125 years graphic was designed although the club were talking about having a less cluttered variant on the shirts.

The new take on our first badge – a great centre piece, even if the surround was all a bit ‘Arsenal’

Much as I love the Castle, the thought of going all the way back to our origins was a wonderful one and it was a real shame this never put in an appearance.

Even if the exterior surround on the badge was proven to be generic rather than unique to the Bees, the interior was most definitely ours. Would it be possible to incorporate this into our kit next season?

The original badge (with a similar one from the time)

And so if anybody is reading, then I’d like to put the thought out there. Has the current badge run it’s course or is it still relevant? Should Brentford look to go for something  different on our shirt next campaign? Perhaps celebrating part of our history as we prepare for the eventual departure from Griffin Park at some point in the next few seasons.

And apologies in advance but, much as I love it, should this thought be given any consideration then perhaps it is best if the Funky Bee doesn’t make any shortlist.

The Funky Bee. Destined never to appear on a shirt again