Brentford’s preparation for the season finale at Liverpool on Sunday has come in a week where, perhaps, staying out of the limelight has been the best strategy.
The game at Anfield will be beyond huge. Momentous. Laden with historical potential. A win for the Bees, or even a draw, combined with ‘other results in our favour’ will see Keith Andrews’ side qualify for European football next season. It is something that nobody even considered him doing at the start of the campaign – indeed, even he noted during the midweek player-of-the-year awards show that everyone had been lined up waiting for him to get the sack.
Yet here we are now. The 37 games played so far and the opportunities we have had, now nothing more than statistics. The table is what the table is. The plan clear: come home on Sunday with points and then cross your fingers.
Keith’s prep for this one has been helped massively by the internal chaos at Anfield. Mo Salah, presumably fit again for a last hurrah in what would be his game 442 for Liverpool, chucking less a rock and more a boulder into the water when he again took aim at manager Arne Slot following their 4-2 pasting at Aston Villa. Ironically, a result which finally took Brentford out of Champions League contention despite the Villans’ subsequent victory in the Europa League final. Talk about a miracle of Istanbul!
The shock waves are still echoing from Salah’s observations that, “Us crumbling to yet another defeat this season was very painful and not what our fans deserve. I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies.
“That is the football I know how to play, and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable, and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.”
Slot now backed into a corner for the weekend. Does he give his one-time talisman the heroic farewell supporters will be desperate for, or will he show that nobody is bigger than the club? It’s a delicious problem for Keith to sit back and enjoy – not that he will, I’m sure. Yet at the same time, internal chaos amongst the opposition can only be a good thing when approaching a game of this significance.
Everybody knows the statistics. The Bees have never scored at Anfield in the Premier League era and haven’t won there since a 4-3 victory in November 1937. There will never be a better opportunity to smash both of those out of the park – everything is pointing to internal carnage at Anfield.
Slot’s reign is on life support and he must now be verging on paranoid about his own position. Talk about a countdown to extinction with Salah turning into the angel of death following that latest bombshell. The Andy Robertson farewell game is now down to third in the pecking order of distractions. Let’s not forget, either, that a 4pm kick-off means their fans are unlikely to get back to Heathrow Airport until near midnight.
Meanwhile, everybody at Brentford is buzzing. Whilst Anfield is mayhem only rivalled at Southampton (a club who we now know will not be joining us in the Premier League next season – Oh Rasmus, looks at what you could have won), Keith is revelling in his own chaos.
He used Thursday’s press conference to explain the changes in the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace last time out, noting: “We’re willing to be a little bit unpredictable with how we attack at times”, adding “there’s always a little bit of method in the madness, I suppose.”
These were sentiments echoed a few days earlier when he told supporters at the aforementioned awards show that, “I like playing in an unpredictable way. We don’t do the same thing every week”.
Given there are no new fitness concerns, it will be chaos and unpredictability from Keith. Soft-rock classics from Arne Slot. All being well, more goals from Igor Thiago. He’ll be desperately keen to go into the World Cup finals with more goals to go alongside the double prizes of supporters’ and players’ player of the year awards.
Otherwise, it would seem to be a straight choice between the four-man midfield or a return for Kevin Schade. Who knows which way Keith will go? The only thing you can say for sure is that with Jordan Henderson, Sepp van den Berg, and Caoimhín Kelleher all sure to feature against their former club, one can well see The Bees getting a better reception from some of the ‘home’ fans than their own management.
On the refereeing front, we’ve dodged Madley, Barrott, Pawson, Attwell, and the rest of the usual suspects. Instead, your officials for this one are:
Referee: Darren England.
Assistants: Scott Ledger, Akil Howson.
Fourth official: Tom Kirk.
VAR: Tony Harrington.
Assistant VAR: Adrian Holmes.
This one is all about Brentford, though. Forget the referees. If the Bees are to achieve that dream of Europe, then they have to win. Have to create the chances to win. At some point, a decision will go against us. That’s just how it goes. Let’s not rely on that but, instead, go into this one all guns blazing and the volume up to 11.
I’m as big a Hard-Fi fan as the next supporter, and much as I’m Living for this weekend, it’s all about the heavy metal.
Will Slot end up as the one for whom the bell tolls? Could Keith and his team deliver the punishment due? A substitution of Enter, Schade could be his greatest hit yet.
Here’s to Europe. The Final Countdown is on!
