MIBBJPT”S” On Dress Rehearsals – When Brentford met Carlisle… and won

Beesy took part in a dress rehearsal once. It was at school and cutting a very long story short a career on stage a screen was cruelly cut short by forgotten lines, a rogue piece of scenery and mild concussion.
In short dress rehearsal are shit and destroyers of dreams.

In fact if this drawn out analogy is to be repeated fully at Wembley Carlisle won’t turn up and will only be seen about a week later with a bandage around their collective heads. Crying.
But let’s start at the beginning… Griffin Park at night, underpowered floodlights and people in suits trying to stomach eating a burger/ pie/ yorkie/ any combination of the three.

Three line up changes saw Simon Moore come in for the injured Richard Lee; Pim Balkenstein for the sick Karleigh Osborne and Jeffrey Schlupp for the a bit rubbish Lewis Grabban.
Beesy last proper look at Brentford was the Peterborough debacle (and it was a debacle regardless of how you think the second half went). How would Brentford play under Forster… well it certainly is a new Brentford. One where the ball gets knocked about a bit, not always in that familiar uncontrolled way, and the shape looks a little better (i.e. they try and stay in shape).

It doesn’t always work, at times Reid was guilty of coming inside too much leaving an excellent Neilson an entire flank to patrol and Alexander and Schlupp probably need more time together to form a partnership. Or Alexander needs dropping. He’s a terrible terrible target man.

But lordy clearly the most impressive change in the post Scott era is the emergence of Marcus Bean in an advanced role. This automatically gave the team a better shape than under Scott, with Dave playing the deeper midfield role and Bean able to support both Schlupp and Alexander.

All this together meant Brentford probably shaded the opening without creating too much. Jeffrey Schlupp made a decent run before toe poking at the keeper being probably the best chance. With Bean having a header cleared off the line and a goalkeeping misjudgement on a Weston free kick being the only other notable moments.
Carlisle did come into the game as the half drew on mainly thanks to closing down the play much faster but also in no small part due to Pim Balkenstein and his increasingly laboured defensive efforts.

In fact the defence was shaky all night. From Moore taking too long to clear the ball and having his kick charged down (or up and over in reality), to Woodman’s clearance off the line (from a decent Moore save, to Moore rushing out to smother a Carlisle through ball. The defence suffered from uncertainty and panic.

This featured more heavily in the second half when Carlisle attacked with more purpose. They are a relatively tidy team going forward and should have scored relatively early on. Woodman had a half he would probably want to forget and some terrible shooting and desperate blocking saw Carlisle waste 3/4 good chances.

And in many ways they did look more likely to score. Particularly when Neilson had to be taken off to be replaced by the competent if unexciting right backery of Kevin O’Connor and even worse Miles Weston replaced by Sam Wood.

Naturally this ruled out a goal from the flanks. Moderately against the run of play a big punt from Moore was flicked on by Alexander. This in itself probably stunned the Carlisle defence as he didn’t look like winning anything in the air all night (let’s be honest he’s rubbish) and in the confusion Jeffrey Schlupp atoned for his terrible miss against Leyton Orient by smashing the ball past the Carlisle keeper.

Ok, it was a bit lucky in terms of the ball ricocheted into his path during the flick on confusion but it was an emphatic finish.

And it got better. Firstly Dave almost scored the most unlikely goal of the season when he laboured around numerous defenders before shooting wide.

Secondly Carlisle failed to clear a free kick put into the box despite various attempts the ball eventually falling to Jeffrey Schlupp on the edge of the area who smashed it in.

Strangely Carlisle gave up the ghost after this and Brentford looked to be coasting to a simple win. Defensive shenanigans aside and a terrible mix up that almost saw Moore sent off with all the subs used (Legge was eventually penalised for an earlier foul) and Michalik driving the resulting free kick past Moore Carlisle seemed reluctant to press too much.

So a psychological edge to Brentford? Probably not. It was a better match to win than lose but Carlisle had enough opportunities to interest them next Sunday.

But Brentford are playing well and they are suddenly fun to watch again…

Moore – Not a great deal to do thanks to poor shooting. Needs to work on decision making but… he’s young 6
Neilson (sub O’Connor 65 mins) – A proper Right Back. Looked good up until injury 7
Legge – The more solid of the centre backs. 7
Balkestein – Hmmmm… Let’s hope Karleigh is stocking up on Antibiotics. 5
Woodman – Remember OUT not UP. Better than Balkenstein 6
Reed (sub Byrne 61 mins) – Good. Probably a central midfielder mind 7
Bean – Looks a different player under Forster 8
Dave – Solid 7
Weston (sub Wood 74 mins) – Linked up well with Schlupp if a little ineffective at times 6
Alexander – Can’t jump and doesn’t win headers. Not a Beesy favourite 6
Schlupp – Yay Jeffrey Schlupp. A more good Ricky Shakes. Put the ball into space on the big Wembley pitch and let him run run run 8

84 minutes of Brentford v Southend report

**This report is dedicated to the f*cking moron colleague of mine who set off our office burglar alarm while I’m on call, resulting in my missing the end of the game. I assume it finished a draw. I don’t have a tv. Or the Internet.**

Well then, it turns out that having two six-out-of-ten goalkeepers is actually worse than having an eight-out-of-ten and a three-out-of-ten keeper. That’s a slightly unfair validation of Beesy’s distinct dissatisfaction with our goalkeeping options, since there is no way the whole ball crossed the line. Francis’ poor free kick was caught by Bull who stumbled slightly and stepped back, thrusting the ball forward. No Southend player appealed for a goal, yet goal was given by a linesman some ten yards west of the byline. We reserve our right to change our partisan minds completely when we see the replay on tv (which we don’t have) or the Internet (which we don’t have).

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the entire phantom goal episode was the fact that only Alan Bennett seemed particularly bothered by it. No Southend player appealed; no Brentford players bar Bennett berated the officials. Either the Respect campaign is religiously followed in TW8 or it was an awful decision most of our players were too spineless to contest.

The first half performance was, to be frank, dirge. Charlie Mac missed a couple of half chances but to sum up our performance in a sentence: “first ball misdirected header from Mark Phillips, second ball aimless hoof upfield from Phillips towards Miles Weston, header from massive Southend centre back, midfield mess won by Southend”.

The second half sparked into life after Sam Wood superbly riled Francis into springing up after feigning injury, and a woken crowd – who had earlier all but failed to cheer the announcement of the team – seemed to bring out the marginally better in the side.

Miles Weston drew a needless foul chasing a through ball and Kevin O’Connor pelted the penalty home.

At this point phone calls from irate neighbours and the Metropolitan Police obscured my following of the game – the draw – so here are the ratings instead:

Bull 5 – Wilson 7 (but for the love of all that is pure, play him at centre back) Phillips 5 Bennett 6 Foster 5 – Saunders 6 Bean 5 O’Connor 6 Wood 7 – MacDonald 5 Weston 5

No subs had been made at the time your correspondent left.

Brentford 2 – 1 Nurridge: more floodlit fun

There really is something about busy night games at GP. Always a much better atmosphere than Saturdays too – as long as a crowd turns up.

At half-time we feared the worst – Norwich looked faster, stronger and frankly better. Bennett’s limp-off was not as concerning as it once would have been. Of the many beneficiaries of Andy Scott’s reign Karleigh Osborne should be near the top of the list. The ricks are slowly leaving his game and he’s developed an odd poise.

Anyway the second half was outstanding. The interplay between Wood, Dickson and Saunders was facilitated by the superb Hunt at the fulcrum of everything. Weston and Cort were full of effort and running, albeit without the latter threatening the scoresheet.

The only areas of concern were Kevin O’Connor and the unconvincing Lewis Price. For KO’C there was some good, composed break-out play, but he was slow off his heels and often chasing shadows when not in possession, which bodes ill. That said, Norwich’s midfielders were of a higher quality than most we will see this year. Price had a fortunate reprieve on a number of crosses, and however many times we re-watch the video we still can’t see a deflection on the free kick that beat him a metre inside his near post.

Still, it’s churlish to criticise after a good team performance like that and, much though Brentford were assisted by Norwich’s extraordinary internecine squabbling and desertion of composure after half-time, these are the games to be enjoyed.

Price 5 – Foster 7 Bennett 6 (Osborne 7) Phillips 7 Dickson 8 – Saunders 8 (Taylor -) O’Connor 5 Hunt 8 Wood 7 – Weston 6 (Kabba -) Cort 6

Carlisle 1 – 3 Bees: northern composure

Like we knowingly said in our preview, Lenny Pidgeley now plays for Carlisle. Like we didn’t say in the preview for fear of tempting fate, he’s fucking atrocious and as good as a two goal start.

First games are still usually a poor guide to how a season will unfold – and we write that with Bury and Chesterfield away, and Leroy’s beginnings in mind – but it’s promising stuff if the defensive uncertainties can be ironed out. Maybe we need to get Weston’s tribunal out of the way sooner rather than later though…