Saturday evening’s trip to Manchester City sees the current Brentford team with a chance to write themselves into the history books.
Understandably, most observers will be looking to this game as a major step in deciding where the Premier League title will end up. Incredibly, it was Mikel Arteta rather than Pep Guardiola who won the battle of ‘who blinks first’ during the last round of fixtures. The City defence self-combusting at Everton, where, despite a stirring comeback when they found themselves 3-1 down, the visitors were only able to escape with a draw that now leaves them two points adrift of the Gunners. Drop any more, and what suddenly feels a slim chance at taking the crown from current champions Liverpool (not a typo) will be all but mathematically gone.
Yet for those of us in TW8, whoever becomes Champions is nothing more than academic. Instead, all eyes remain firmly placed on not only a highest-ever Premier League finish but also the race for European qualification. That same round of fixtures in which City embraced their inner Leeds United also saw Brentford get back to winning ways at home to West Ham with that 3-0 victory.
Despite the visitors hitting the woodwork as many times as Brentford found the back of the net, it could just as easily been out of sight had Mikkel Damsgaard and Igor Thiago taken chances to add to the goals they did score. With every other result barring a win for Bournemouth going Keith Andrews’ way, he now finds himself with the rather distasteful prospect of knowing a victory for Fulham will stop the Cherries increasing their single-point lead over the Bees. That game is a 3pm kick off, and means that the exact state of the table will be known to Brentford before the action gets underway at The Ethiad.
If anything, the result at Everton has made things marginally ‘easier’ (and we use the word in the loosest sense) for Brentford. Prior to that, all the talk was of City and Arsenal making a clean sweep of victories in the run-in so that the title would effectively turn into a goal-difference shoot-out. Those two points dropped have changed the dynamic totally. Will Pep now be as focused on simply staying in the race? Looking to grind out a 1-0 rather than going in all guns blazing?
Then again, he’s always found Brentford a tough nut to crack. An average of 1.4 goals per game is the lowest strike rate City have achieved against anybody under Guardiola. Thirteen goals from the nine played between the two sides is a testament to the resilience of the Bees, who, let’s not forget, secured that famous victory at The Ethiad back in November 2022. It may be a while back on paper, but given the scarcity of teams who manage this, bears thinking about.
Especially given six of those involved in that famous victory were part of the setup against West Ham a week ago. For the record: Jensen, Yarmo, KLP, Vitaly, Ethan, and, of course, Josh Dasilva. How utterly euphoric was it having him back after that huge, huge time off through injury? As one West Stand observer put it afterwards, “Hugely emotional moment. I felt like a proud dad”. He’s not wrong.
Fair play to Matthew Benham for not only his loyalty but also his approach. Consistency and a slow building of the squad over time, rather than throwing gargantuan amounts in an attempt to find instant success (Chelsea, we’re looking down the table at you) proving to be the longer-term, and more financially sustainable, means of finding top-flight happiness.
It was Josh who set up the winner for Ivan Toney back in 2022. Imagine the reaction from the Bees fans if he were to provide another assist of such timely joy?
I can only imagine he’ll start this one on the bench with Keith once more picking the same team. Despite the terrifying thought of Semenyo and Doku blitzing down the channels, Cherki and Bernado Silva trying to boss the middle, or the free-scoring Haaland up top, this is only the time for positivity from the Brentford head coach.
To be fair, his options are limited by squad availability, but, more importantly, he had the balls to stick with a four rather than five-man defence at Manchester United the other week. Only a bizarre off-day in front of goal, where we seemed to have packed two left boots for Igor Thiago, denying Brentford the win, let alone a draw. On any other day, he’d have buried two or more of the myriad glorious chances created. The plus side being that even on the road, against Champions League-chasing opposition, having a courageous mindset against a wobbly defence showed what we can do.
The clock really is ticking now. For both teams. Brentford have nothing to lose and everything to gain. From the position of being most pundits’ pre-season relegation candidates, they are now standing on the threshold of legend. They go into this with zero pressure or expectation. By contrast, City know that the title is now out of their hands and reliant on Mikel Arteta choking. As if that would ever happen…
Surely this will only add to their own pressure, although we all know about the quite tremendous mentality they have. Only a fool would write them off.
Our officials for this one include none of the names that usually cause palpitations prior to kick-off. Albeit, one has to acknowledge the excellent game Craig Pawson had in the middle at The Gtech on Saturday. Fair play to him.
This time around, your Attwell free team is:
Referee: Michael Salisbury.
Assistants: Marc Perry, Scott Ledger.
Fourth official: Rob Jones.
VAR: James Bell.
Assistant VAR: Ian Hussin.
This one has all the hallmarks of a game to go down in our own history. Brentford with a huge role to play in the final destination of the title, not that anybody with the club will give a flying fish about that. Instead, it is all about securing as many points as possible from these last three games. About knowing what that final table could look like. Not to mention the battle for the golden boot.
Come on, Igor, this is your Manchester time…
