Brentford head to Southampton for a Saturday afternoon fixture that brings the busy Christmas period to a close. Nick Bruzon previews.
It has been a mixed bag for the Bees with injuries dominating the news and Thomas Frank’s team failing to register a win since the 4-2 thumping handed out to Newcastle United in early December. The most recent run out saw Brentford take the lead against Arsenal before David Raya, somehow, managed to claw the ball off the line and avoid an almost certain scoreline of 2-0 with just a half-hour on the clock.
Instead, the Gunners went down the other end and levelled things up before running out 3-1 winners in the second-half. The fine margins on which a football game can turn.
To be fair, patched-up Brentford played very well in that opening period whilst were not helped by the twin machinations of referee ‘Robin’ Bankes and Mikel Arteta’s side re-writing the big book of football sh*thousery. Three chapters alone reserved for Gabriel Jesus whose powers of recovery Thomas Frank must have been wishing his own players could acquire
At times it was like watching a lovechild spawned from the unholy union between Steve Cooper and , err, Steve Cooper. They were that bad. Then again, you know what you are going to get with an Arteta team and despite the pretty play – of which Bryan Mbeumo and Mikkel Damsgaard were once again the main men for the Bees – the combination of our visitors’ gamesmanship and quality were too much.
The good news for the Bees is that there are no new injury concerns. Thomas Frank used Thursday’s press conference to confirm that “The ones that came back against Arsenal (Mathias Jensen, Sepp van den Berg, and Mark Flekken) all came through well, so that’s good.”
Fabio Carvalho, who missed out on the squad for Arsenal, is again expected to be awol. However, the head coach explaining that this was due to a minor groin injury. Those theories I heard being whispered around the Gtech about parental meddling nothing more than tittle-tattle.
Sadly, albeit not unexpected given the proximity of fixtures over this period, there is no change on the rest of the absentees. In terms of those longer-term injuries, the Bees are still without Kristoffer Ajer, Ben Mee, Ethan Pinnock, Aaron Hickey, Rico Henry (stop for breath), Igor Thiago, Gustavo Nunes and Josh Dasilva.
That’s an entire first-choice defence plus others. Kudos to Thomas Frank for marshalling his remaining troops so well. How he deals with this one remains to be seen, of course. Yehar Yarmoliuk impressed against Arsenal , as did Kim Ji-Soo from the bench. Kevin Schade will be desperate for the chance to try running through the league’s bottom-placed club.
With that proliferation of games having been played recently, I am sure some changes will be coming. The availability of Mathias Jensen is a huge boost and whilst the squad can only be stretched so far, Thomas will be keen to get him back to action.
As for the home side, much of the talk is around reaching the halfway point in the season with form that is beyond woeful. After 19 games, they are on just six points and miles off safety. Before even looking to survive the drop, their first aspiration must be to avoid the unwanted record of going lower than Derby County’s worst-ever Premier League campaign.
2007-08 saw the Rams pick up just 11 points and one win as they set all manner of horrific records on the way to crashing out of the top flight. Whether the Saints can be quite that awful is unlikely and they will no doubt be targeting this one as a ‘must-win’ game. Especially given Brentford’s own, well-documented, away-form that has seen just two points picked up on the road.
One thing’s for sure, Thomas Frank is rightly alert to both the banana skin this game presents but also the difference since Russell Martin was relieved of duty. He has highlighted his own areas of awareness of the changes brought about by new manager Ivan Jurić.
“They don’t take as many risks when they are building up. They go longer sometimes to Onuachu up top, who is a handful”, adding that “they went from being fifteenth to second for crosses, on average; there are a few tactical tweaks that we need to be aware of”.
Of course, Brentford won at a canter when the teams met at The Gtech early in the season. The only blot on the copybook of a 3-1 victory being the 95th-minute consolation conceded being the first Premier League goal scored by the Saints.
This time around things won’t be so easy. That said, with both sides’ relative form something has to give. Surely?
Fingers crossed for a first away win of the season….
