Championship: Brentford- Sheffield Wednesday

 

We are looking for a 4th straight win on a Brentford home game having taken them to beat Reading and Brighton and the "over" in the loss to Norwich City, who were on fire at the time. The most recent of those previews, the visit from the Royals earlier this month, is reproduced below in full. The Bees won that 3-1, it could easily have been a more emphatic win and they have adapted well to life in the Championship and a heavy road defeat to Middlesbrough aside, they should be undefeated this season.
 

Tonight they have to manage without central defender James Tarkowski whom I discussed below, he will be replaced by Harlee Dean and whilst Dean doesn't have the potential of JT, the three centre backs are largely interchangeable and he has started games recently as Tony Craig was out previously. On the plus side, Stuart Dallas is fit to return after a month out and will give the hosts more options out wide and a goal threat from those areas. They are coming off a 0-0 draw at Wigan Athletic where, apart from a 15 minutes spell at the start of the second half, they were largely dominant and should have taken all three points, Jota ( again, see below) played his first 90 minutes of the season, has upped his fitness levels to Championship requirements and is going to capture a lot of headlines this season.
 

Again, I will repeat that this is a very difficult place to come and get a result and the Bees have won 22 of 29 starts at Griffin Park, which is a magical place under the floodlights. There is a special bond between supporters and players, which you do not get both ways at many clubs and several players posted videos and photographs of the huge support they got before, during and long after the game at Wigan, including some 4-5 hours after the game back in London when Harlee Dean put this on instagram.

 

Talking of support, I have always had a lot of time for the Wednesday supporters and as usual, they have sold out their away allocation for a match involving an eight hour round trip on a Tuesday night. However, the Owls have lost their way a little after a strong start to their season and have now not won in five starts in all competitions, through which they have not kept a clean sheet. They are coming off a 3-0 home defeat to Watford, boss Stuart Gray has been thwarted in his attempts to sign a striker on loan and has urged his side to tighten up at the back, so we can perhaps expect a defensive set up tonight, with Gray already being criticised for being too negative . They have lost injury prone defensive midfielder San Hutchinson for a couple of weeks and right back Lewis Buxton is out again after only recently returning from injury. They look in need of some fresh blood and Gray made a strange comment last week, saying "we struggle when teams press us", what does he expect teams to do ? His players will get very little time on the ball tonight with the Bees looking to harry teams all over the pitch. The hosts look in better shape right now and are certainly a more balanced unit. Home win.
 

Good Luck.

 

 

Championship: Brentford- Reading (written October 4th)

Like the Leeds-Sheff Weds game, the Bees come into this match having had an extra days recovery time and if we also factor in the trip back from Yorkshire, which would have seen them arrive home in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Royals turnaround is even quicker than that of United. That is not ideal facing a team who play at as high a tempo as the Bees, who press, always keep at least two and often three men up front when defending corners, who are lightning quick on the break and give you feel little opportunity to catch a breather.
 

Following their win over Brighton at Griffin Park recently I wrote ....... It was a thrilling game, the Bees started slowly, not for the first time this season and could have been a goal down inside 10 minutes, but for the next 45 or so, were almost unplayable and no Championship level team would have stayed with them through this period. On the biggest fan forum, the match reports all read very similarly," best performance in 7-20-25-40-50 years", depending how long each supporter has been following Brentford, the team is young, absolutely full of pace, have huge technical ability across the middle, with Jota and Moses Odubajo able to switch flanks at will and when they play at tempo and this is a squad with very high fitness levels, they are impossible to stop.

If this sounds a little far fetched, then the truth is I have to pinch myself and so do many other old school fans, this is just on another level to even what we saw last season, when they were easily one of the top two L1 teams and as a group, they can only get stronger. There must already be EPL teams kicking themselves that they did not take a chance on Odubajo and at 21 yo his potential is unlimited, Jota looks sublime and is still only fit enough to play 60-70 minutes having not spent pre season in England, Jake Bidwell and James Tarkowski will definitely play in the top flight and sooner rather than later. Tarkowski was linked with Manchester united and Liverpool whilst with Oldham, he is still only 21 yo and a central defender improving week on week. Brentford had seven players not even on the bench who could start regularly at one or two Championship teams, so a very strong squad of 25-26 and one which will get better almost on a month by month basis over the next couple of seasons.
 

They are still a work in progress and learning at this level, but only Middlesbrough outplayed them and they could/should have taken points from every other start. They totally dominated Leeds United here last week and were the better team in a midweek 2-1 defeat at Watford, where the Hornets were wrongly awarded a penalty and on another day Brentford would have took the points. There were a mountain of pre season notes on the Bees and you all know the direction I feel they are heading long term.
 

Atmosphere has been great at GP all season and as I wrote recently , it will be a bit of a culture shock for many Championship teams, the crowd is right on top of you, every word from the stands can he heard and whilst Brentford have upgraded the backrooms at the stadium, they have purposely kept the away dressing room, shall we say "a little basic" and if the whole visiting squad and coaching staff want to shoehorn in, half will have to stand ! The Bees have a 75% home win rate since the start of last season and few teams will get an easy ride here.
 

Reading played Sunday-Wednesday and now Saturday and against this opponent, with 9-10 hours on a bus to take into account, that is a very big ask.