Deserved to lose that, Brentford played very well and we were very poor in final third. Brentford play like a more refined version of ourselves, less physical but more fluid and intelligent with the ball and their movment. It felt like we are trying to drag them into more of a battle that would suit us but they were too quick and slick and just kept us at arms length. Brentford attack in numbers and it really was like attack was their best form of defence as they largely kept us penned back and they stopped our full backs from getting forward at all. Both of their wingers caused us lots of issues as expected.
Our defence started shakey but seems to settled down as the game went, Dunkley and Kipre did very well overall but our big issue was we had zero penetration from our attacking quartet and the ball just kept coming back at us. Powell showed some flashes but he had nothing around him to work with today. We got very little out of Windass and Connolly on either wing and we resorted to too many long balls due to a lack of options in the final third as as we know we are crap at long ball.
I've got to be honest i've been massively unerwhelmed by Windass so far. He seems very reluctant to take his man on, i never saw him much in Scotland but i was under the impression he was a player who liked to run at players - can anyone confirm if that is right? I don't want to write him off as it's such early days and some players take a while to find their feet in a higher league but after paying so much i expected more tbh.
For Connolly i assumed he would be in the side so we can aim cross field balls to him and exploit his aerial presence - almost use him a a Lee McCollouch type winger. But there was none of that in the last 2 games he's played on the right wing. There is absolutely no reason to have him on the right wing if you are going to expect him to play as a traditional winger - he's not got enough pace or dribbling skills to offer anything in that role. Since Massey and Jacobs got injured our pace and penetration has evoporated and it's really hurting us as it was a key part of our system. After McMannaman changed the game last week i don't know why we picked Connolly on the wing in the manner we did.
As usual Vaughan isn't able to win the long balls, you've got to give it to Vaughan for his effort but it's absolutely pointless starting him and expecting him to hold the ball or win flick-ons he's just not big or strong enough. Every time he is on the pitch it feels we switch style of play and we are drastically worse for it. Brentford today showed that you can avoid the need for a physical prescence if you are smart enough in your pass and move game, but if we want that target man outlet Vaughan is not the solution. I feel sorry for Vaughan though as all his goals came in a front 2 playing off a target man then both us and Sunderland have been asking him to play on his own as the target man he never was.
Brentford loved to play the ball out from the back and sailed very close to the wind a couple of time, we nearly caught them a few times but those odd loose passes and a couple of moments from Powell were our only glimpses of goal. But at the same time i still think if we would've been able to play our game we could've won that today - we just didn't turn up.
Morys red probaby was a red for me, it probably wasn't as bad as the Brentford players made it out to be with their reaction but i think Morsy gave the ref a decision to make and i see exactly why he gave it. If a Brentford player did that to us i'd have wanted him off, so can't complain. It certainly didn't help but i'm not sure we looked like we had it in us to get an equaliser even without the sending off. Shame we lose Morsy for a few games but i think Gibson coming back should hopefully help mitigate that loss.
I think our team selection today (not using Grigg and Jacobs) was with one eye on the next 2 games but it just didn't work. I think Cook got it wrong (it happens) and we were well beaten all over the pitch. But i think there are genuinely a lot of lessons we can learn from how Brentford play - the best team i've seen in a very long time. I've been very impressed with what a cohesive unit Cook has built with us but what Dean Smith has built at Brentford is like the next level up. They don't have the greatest set of individual players but they play pefectly to their strengths and it seemed every one of them knew exactly what their role was and their system is very effective.
Got to hold our hands up today and say the best team won today, but at the same time i don't think we did ourselves justice - some of that was Brentford stopping us and some of it was us not doing what we do well. This is the first game we've deserved to lose this season, but i am now convinced Brentford will be in the top 6 - miles ahead of everyone we've played this season and one of the best teams i've seen in a very long time.
With a couple of the early season strugglers like Rotherham, Reading, QPR and Hull, etc stringing together a couple of results they are now in a position where they can jump us with another win if we let our form dip. Vital that we get right back on the horse on Tuesday night against Hull and consolidate a good strat to the season and ensure we don't get slowly dragged towards the relegation battle. Harsh lesson for us today but i think Brentford have shown the way for a club like ours what is possible if you get your recruitment right and have a good mangers in place.
