Bees up Fulham down !
May 29, 2021
Championship playoff final: Brentford- Swansea City
This is often dubbed the richest single game in football and that is true with the difference between winning and losing, some £153m worth of guaranteed income !
Brentford are here for the second year running and are trying to erase the hurt of a no show appearance last season against a bitter rival in Fulham and to put to bed the worst playoff record in football ! It feels different this time round and this group of players do not carry that yoke of depression that supporters have toted for three decades and now have the experience of playing in this sky high pressure fixture . Ahead of the playoffs I took a look at the numbers and gave my thoughts on all four teams .............
3 . Brentford
4. Swansea City
5. Barnsley
6. Bournemouth
Last 15 seasons: The third placed team has won seven times (46.67%%), 4th on three occasions, 5th four times, the team finishing in sixth just once and not for the last ten seasons.
In terms of h2h round robin (games between the four teams this season): Brentford 11 points, Swansea City 9 points, Bournemouth 7 points, Barnsley 6. Swansea won both h2h games with Barnsley, only the Tykes beat Brentford and they have turned into a bogey team , but only when the Bees are hosting.
Points picked up over the second half of the season : Barnsley 44 (+10), Brentford 43 (-1), Swansea City 37 (-6), Bournemouth 35 (-7). Figures in parenthesis are the difference between second 23 and first 23 games.
xP for the season:
#1 Brentford 100 pts
#4 Barnsley 79 pts
#7 Bournemouth 69 pts
#13 Swansea City 61 pts
Playoff experience: Last season I wrote that this is not to be underestimated and Fulham are taking part for the third time in four seasons, winning in 17-18 and they won again . Brentford took part in the 2014-15 Championship playoffs and lost in the final last season and many of a very young squad will have learned a lot from that.
Tenth time lucky ? Brentford have actually participated in nine playoffs previously and are yet to win one ! You are going to read and hear a lot about this in build up, especially if the Bees make the final , it is a beyond awful record, but the players do not carry that baggage, it is only supporters like me that tote that particular yoke of disappointment around. The 6-7 players who took part in the final last season and who are likely to feature this time round will have learned and you would hope, be motivated by the experience.
With such a huge prize at stake these games tend to be close , very tense affairs and many teams make avoiding defeat in the opener a priority. That is borne out by how few semi final first leg home winners there are, only 8 in those last 15 seasons, which is 30 games, a miserly 26.67%, 18 (60%) were level after 45 minutes.
I am not going to waste time on this, you know where I am leaning, it really is time for Brentford to stop playing silly buggers and get the job done ! Last season they were 29+ xP above the other three teams and a net 170+ ITB over the trio, they were head, shoulders and torso the number two team in the Championship, inferior only to Leeds United and that only marginally and United are probably going to finish top 10 in the Premier League this time round. This season Brentford are at least 21 xP better than the other three and the only category they come up short in is second half of the season points, but only by one point and that is because the first half included most of an unbeaten run of 21 games, there was no real drop off.
I have seen a LOT of all of these team, Swansea are not good enough, they drew both games with Brentford, but both were jokes, they were battered senseless at the Liberty and 0-4 would have been fairer. Look at the Swans xP , they were inferior to a dozen teams and that only goes along with what I have seen with my own eyes, they have gone backwards from last season and are fortunate to be here. The only thing in their favour is experience from 19-20 ( but they were well beaten by the Bees in the semi finals) and their h2h record with Barnsley.
The Tykes have had a fantastic run to the playoffs under Valérien Ismaël, who looks absolutely bloody terrifying on the sidelines (maybe the players are scared to lose !). Their sum is much greater than their parts, their recruitment is great and there is much to like about them as a club and if it is not to be Brentford, then I hope it is them, but they are a long way behind the Bees (it is not even close), stalled a little once they got into the top six, but they look second best of the quartet.
Bournemouth are the opposite to Barnsley, as the Cherries are not a "team" and their parts are greater than the whole, they looked good and to be running into some real form until 19 days ago when they hosted Brentford and after that game I wrote .............
If we backtrack to last Saturday morning, the team most Brentford supporters would have wanted to avoid in the semis was Bournemouth, they were on a roll, having won seven in a row and were looking to make it 3/3 relegated teams being promoted, with Norwich City and Watford already having sealed the deal. However, their air of invincibility was ripped to pieces by the Bees going to the Vitality Stadium and playing Bounemouth off the park for 90 minutes, despite having just ten men on the pitch for the final 46. The scoreline said 1-0 to Brentford, but 3 or 4-0 would have been a fairer reflection, the Bees were first to every ball, pressed all over the pitch , dominated, created a massive number of chance, conceded next to nothing with goalkeeper David Raya mainly playing a sweeper role and this continued after the dismissal of Pontus Jansson (Brentford "winning" attempts 18-4, on target 6-1, ITB 12-2 , BC's 4-1 and it felt far more dominant than that) . It was the best the Bees have looked in months and it is hard to see them not wanting to build on that now, with the playoffs so close and it all being decided within a month and the Holy Grail of a place in the Premier League awarded to one of four teams.
It was hard to believe how good the Bees were and I rewatched some of that this morning just to remind myself, Brentford have gone from strength to strength subsequently, Bournemouth lost to relegated Wycombe and an out of sorts Stoke City without scoring in either in their last two starts. I think the Brentford game knocked them for six and it will be tough to lift themselves, they lost both h2h games and did not score in either. I just do not think that they, or anyone else could beat the Bees over two games.
Time for the "unluckiest" team in football ( in addition to the nine playoff defeats , they also finished second both times in the two years that just one club was promoted...........you could not make it up !) to make the demons go away !
Ahead of the semi final second leg with Bournemouth I updated with ..................
Cut and dried for the Bees, as they lost the first leg 1-0 with Bryan Mbeumo missing a sitter for the equaliser , I must have seen 30-40 replays and still think he is going to score every time (!), so the mission is clear, win or watch the final on television.
I cannot give a real opinion, Brentford are the better team on and off the pitch IMO and I suspect Bournemouth are a little scared/nervous, Brentford
Brentford won 3-1 and Bryan Mbeumo picked up the MOTM award and yes, we did have mad scenes !
Swansea came through the tie with Barnsley fairly comfortably and the Tykes must be sick of the sight of the South Wales side.
I might as well be honest, I do not think Swansea are very good, yes they can win, over 90-120 minutes anything can happen, but they have been vastly inferior to Brentford in the last six h2h meetings, the Bees scored three goals in three of those and it might easily have been in five games . There is very bad feeling left over from that game at the Liberty I have already discussed, when Swansea grabbed an unlikely point courtesy of a foul on the Brentford goalkeeper by former Bee Jake Bidwell and both sets of supporters have decided they do not like each other and I suspect the players view things similarly. Brentford were 39 ( !!) xP better over the 46 games which is just ridiculous, Swansea played largely at mid table level and I am sorry, I know the ball is round and all that , but I have convinced myself that justice will finally be done and if I had to cherry pick one team from the top ten for the Bees to play in the final, Swansea would have been one of my top 2 selections . I think their backline is suspect to pace and similar to the Bournemouth game, feel only one team can win this if they fall behind, if Brentford score first and Swansea are forced to play further forward, it could get nasty quickly for them .
There is no need to bet Brentford if you are on outright at 2.75 (they are now 1.44), but if coming into this fresh, best value with 1.75 units Brentford -1 ball 2.84 asian line.
Brentford to win by two and the dulcet tones of "Bees up Fulham down" to be ringing over West London long into the night !
Glossary:
ITB= inside the box attempts, Goal of the month competitions usually feature several long range contenders and we always remember those 30 yard bullets into the top corner, but only 12.87% of Premier League goals over the last three seasons have been scored from outside the box , good coaches are known to encourage players to look for better scoring opportunities and it is usually only supporters urging "shoooooot" everytime the goal is within sight, even if there are 20 players between ball and net .
XG= expected goals.
XGF= expected goals for.
XGA = expected goals against.
XGD = expected goal difference.
XP = expected points.
BC = big scoring chance.
Good luck !
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