Chwarae teg, as someone who has often been critical of Cardiff City this season, I thought we played pretty well on our first visit to the new Brentford Community Stadium tonight. It finished 1-1 and so, although our promotion hopes realistically ended at Sheffield Wednesday, we’ve damaged the aspirations of two of the sides above us in the last four days.
With Reading on Friday, we were playing a team that knew automatic promotion was out of the picture and their Play Off hopes were fading pretty quickly. Tonight, it was different – Brentford may have stopped winning matches recently (one in six going into tonight’s game), but, with a top six finish virtually certain, they still entertained lingering hopes of automatic promotion.
However, with Watford winning tonight at already promoted Norwich, Brentford find themselves ten points adrift of second place with just four matches to play – they have to face the fact that they are going to be in the Play Offs once again and they have an appalling record in the end of season mini competitions.
It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that what happened at the back end of last season is haunting a club thats recruitment policy is equally admired and envied by many in the game. I’ll be wanting Brentford to win the Play Offs because I think they deserve promotion, but losing both of their last two matches last season when two points would have seen them go up automatically is a tough one to get over and I suspect promotion may be beyond them again this time around.
Certainly, Brentford weren’t as impressive tonight as they were on Boxing Day at our place when, after a low key first half that saw them trailing by that Will Vaulks goal from inside his own half, they went up through the gears in the second period to deservedly win 3-2 with Sergi Canos netting a hat trick.
For City, there was frustration tonight at losing a hard won lead within minutes of scoring just like they had done at Reading, but they could be satisfied that, as a team with nothing really to play for now, they did not lack for effort at all and may even have won but for a very poor individual error.
There was disappointment again for supporters like me who were hoping that these last few games would see some game time, or squad experience at the very least, for some of our home produced youngsters, but, once again, Mick McCarthy stuck with the “tried and trusted” senior men with teenager Rubin Colwill stepping down to accommodate the return of Leandro Bacuna to the substitutes bench after a spell of illness in the only change to the squad for the Reading game – as has been remarked upon by many, the continuing selection of Junior Hoilett in the squad when our manager, apparently, has no intention of using him seems very odd.
City made a bright start, pushing Brentford, who had drawn both of their last two home matches 0-0, on to the defensive with their urgency, but they only had a half hit Perry Ng shot which home keeper David Raya saved easily to show for their pressure. Coversely,at the other end, Brentford, distinctly second best for the first ten minutes or so, created a better chance out of nothing really when an unmarked Marcus Forss put his shot straight at Alex Smithies from about twelve yards out.
Brentford were able to impose their passing game on proceedings more as the half wore on, but City were unrecognisable defensively from the team that collapsed at Hillsborough as they maintained their shape and discipline to largely keep the hosts at arms length. Forss carelessly shot over after the Championship’s top scorer, Ivan Toney, nodded back a deep cross – in fact, I’m being generous when I say it was a deep cross, because it looked for all of the world like it had gone out for a goal kick.
Marlon Pack then must have feared the worst when his back pass was picked up by Toney who bore down on the City goal only for Smithies to produce a good save to deny the striker who City have done a good job of keeping in check in their encounters with this season. Going back to Pack, I must say that I’ve more time for him than many City fans do, but he has been prone to giving away or losing the ball in deep areas lately due to wanting to take too many touches – it’s not cost us a goal(s) yet, but I fear it will do soon.
City had a chance of their own as well when Ciaron Brown’s pass was flicked on by Moore into the path of Joe Ralls who went for goal himself rather than look to play in the unmarked Harry Wilson – Ralls’ shot was held on to in regulation style by a diving Raya.
The first half was short on goalmouth action, but it had a watchable quality to it and this continued into the second half as Brentford upped their efforts in attack, but City were able to launch counters of their own that showed they were not solely preoccupied with defending.
With wing backs Ng and Tom Sang both looking impressive, City were able to move the ball around more cohesively than normal, but there was still a lack of precision in their passing at times which meant that good chances, particularly late on when the home side were chasing the win they so desperately needed, went begging.
City took the lead on fifty seven minutes when Wilson and Sang’s persistence won a free kick close to the bye line right on the edge of the penalty area. Vaulks’ resultant cross was met by an unmarked Curtis Nelson standing just beyond the penalty spot, but his header looked to be going just wide when it hit Ethan Pinnock on the hand and referee Darren England pointed to the spot – by the interpretation of the handball law we’ve seen this season it looked a fair decision to me, but the referee’s decision not to further punish the player looked the right one to me given that Pinnock had not kept out a goal attempt which looked like it was going in.
Keiffer Moore’s three penalties before today had all been aimed high into the net, but this time he went low to Raya’s left as he dived to his right – it was another impressive spot kick by the striker who has now reached twenty for the season if you include his goals for Wales.
City had been defending well enough to make me think that Moore’s eighteenth goal of his league campaign would prove decisive, but I figured without an awful blunder by Smithies who allowed a shot from Tarique Fosu from twenty yards which was well struck, but straight at him, to slip through his hands and dribble apologetically into the net.
With Smithies having been at fault with one of Blackburn’s goals in his comeback game after his illness enforced withdrawal at Bristol City in January and his erratic spell around Christmas (at least one of Brentford’s goals at Cardiff City Stadium should have been saved to my mind), our number one goalkeeper is having his worst season since signing for us nearly three years ago and it only re emphasises that Dillon Phillips has been very hard done by – he’s been penalised for letting in five in his last match, yet none of them were down to him.
Brentford forced a lot of corners and free kicks after that and City needed to be vigilant at the back in the twenty five minutes or so that remained. However, with all of the back three continuing with the improved form seen at Reading, they came through their defensive examination despite the ball sometimes bouncing around dangerously in their penalty area and Smiithies opting to fist away a Canos shot late on which moved about a fair bit in the air.
However, it was us who missed the best chance of a winning goal when Raya made a mess of Vaulks long throw in and the ball fell to Wilson on his left foot about five yards out – it was an awkward ball to hit, but it was the player in blue you would most want the chance to fall to and it was disappointing to see the shot dribble wide.
Finally, it was good to see Jordy Osei Tutu back in action after his long lay off (even if it was at the expense of injuries to the very good Sang and Ng) and he was able to give us a few signs of what we’ve been missing – we look like we will be losing a lot of wingers/wide players this summer and I wonder if we could try to get him back for next season to play further forward than he has done in his all too rare appearances for us this time around?