There is a very real chance that by the time Brentford and West Ham kick off on Monday evening, both teams could be in the bottom three of the Premier League table. The Hammers are already in 19th whilst a freak combination of results would see Keith Andrews' team joining them.
True, it would take that most remarkable of circumstances – an actual win for Ange Postecoglou when Nottingham Forest host Chelsea, followed by Burnley absolutely tonking Leeds United – but stranger things have happened. Such are the margins in what is currently a very tight table.
This is all the more evident from a simple reminder that going into the previous game – the first half no-show at home to Manchester City – a victory would have seen The Bees rise to seventh in the league. If only they’d turned up in that first half.
Moping about team selection, formation and tactics won’t help going forward. It certainly won’t change a situation that still sees Brentford just a single win away from the top ten going into this round of fixtures.
Indeed, it would be fair to say that so far, the current campaign has seen about as open a battle as we’ve had in years. Bournemouth and Crystal Palace continue to make waves in the top six whilst Sunderland are also upsetting the usual order of things. Liverpool looked like running away with things before losing two on the bounce to be replaced by Arsenal at the top (not a typo).
All of which means that the lower half of the table sees a lot of unexpected names who will be doing their damnedest to ensure they don’t get left behind. Certainly, there is no room for any complacency as we move from these opening phases into something that starts to feel more indicative of how the campaign may play out. The psychological damage at the end of this round of fixtures (8 out of 38) could start to tell with much more of a clue gleaned as to who could be in trouble come May’s opening of the trap door.
Actually, let’s go back a bit and rephrase. Overly moping about team selection, formation and tactics won’t help as long as the coaching staff recognise what we can improve upon in future.
The toe-curlingly negative setup against Manchester City was as poles apart as it is possible to imagine from the up and at ’em positivity displayed against Manchester United a week earlier. Let’s not forget that Brentford have two world-class playmakers in England captain Jordan Henderson and the mercurial Mikkel Damsgaard.
The ability to not just play it long and precise but also out wide to the feet of pacy wingers or simply drive forward with the ball tied to your foot are a combination of abilities Brentford can call upon whenever desired. Fingers crossed that Keith remembers this when locking in his starting XI at the Olympic Stadium on Monday evening. When issuing his team their final orders before the game kicks off. I’m really backing him to rise to the challenge and go for the 4-4-2 we were all hoping he’d pick against City.
Whatever happens, he’ll have to make do without Antoni Milambo. The curse of the new signing striking yet again with an ACL injury picked up whilst on duty for the Netherlands’ U21 side ruling him out for the rest of the season. With the £20m player having started to be slowly integrated into the team, this is a massive blow for all concerned.
The anti-gravity treadmill – surely our best investment since paying Troyes just 6.5 million Euros for Bryan Mbeumo – will be back in action once again.
The big question mark from the starting XI hangs over Aaron Hickey like a particularly nasty-looking Damascene sword. He departed the field of play injured during the first of two games for Scotland over the break and missed the subsequent tie. Manager Steve Clarke later admitting the player had been a risk anyway, given the knock he’d suffered. There will be more than a few fingers crossed about Aaron’s prognosis with plenty more recriminations in Clarke’s direction should the wing back not be available.
The only saving grace about the situation being the current choice available to Keith Andrews should he need another option on the left. Rico Henry or Keane Lewis-Potter will both be chomping at the bit to reclaim a position that each has dominated in recent years. That aside, it will (or should) be a 4-4-2 by number on the assumption that the only other hurt over the break was that to Cristiano Ronaldo’s pride (take a bow, Caoimhin Kelleher).
Kelleher, Hickey/KLP/Henry, Kayode, Collins, van den Berg, Henderson, Damsgaard, Yarmoliuk, Schade, Ouattara, Thiago.
There’s been a really interesting article on the BBC website this week about XG – expected goals – across the Premier League. It looks at how all 20 teams have fared so far based on chances created.
When it comes to the Bees, there’s a very simple message that comes out of this. We’re the most shot shy in the Premier League this campaign. An average of eight per game is almost half that of Liverpool and Arsenal at the other end, for example. Only Burnley rank alongside us at this bottom end of the scale.
That said, where Burnley and most others are failing to hit the target, when the Bees do get one away there’s just one team – Crystal Palace – with a better shot quality.
Being accurate is great but when you only have a few opportunities per game to do this, then there would seem to be a huge area for improving your chances of winning. Of course, I’m no mathematician, but the answer seems fairly clear. Get the ball towards the opposition end and allow yourself the chance to create more. The rest follows naturally.
If there was ever more incentive needed to go for it, then the same study shows that West Ham have only perennial entrants Burnley below them in the ‘poor attack, poor defence’ category. Whether new manager Nuno Espirito Santo has had sufficient time with his team to change any of this remains to be seen but for a club so founded upon data, this would seem too telling a set of figures to ignore.
If nothing else, I’m sure Keith Andrews will be relishing the chance to get one back on the manager he faced in the season opener at the City Ground. Then, the Bees were swept aside as Nottingham Forest raced into a 3-0 half-time lead they showed no signs of giving up.
It was a harsh awakening for the new Brentford head coach but at least he has the consolation of a very private owner in Matthew Benham. Contrast this with the front and centre approach of Evangelos Marinakis at Forest, and it is no surprise Nuno is now at West Ham.
One thing he’ll do is get results. Whether morale in East London is sufficiently low that it will be a case of BAU in the Olympic will start to become clear at 8pm on Monday. Whether the Bees can take advantage, likewise.
I can’t wait. It promises to be a really interesting battle with whomever has the guts to go for it likely to end up on top.
