AUTOMATIC PROMOTION A REAL POSSIBILITY FOR BEES
THOMAS FRANK’S SIDE FIRMLY IN THE RUNNING AFTER BEATING WEST BROM
THOMAS FRANK admitted it is “game on” as far as his Brentford team’s automatic promotion hopes in the Championship are concerned, as they delivered another post lockdown knockout blow to another top four outfit.
Having seen off west London rivals Fulham in the previous outing at Craven Cottage, the Bees beat second-placed West Brom 1-0 on Friday night at Griffin Park, thanks to a single Ollie Watkins goal.
With Fulham losing again – this time at leaders Leeds United on Saturday – Frank’s Bees are now five points behind West Brom heading into the last seven matches, with everything to play for. Leeds are three points clear of the Baggies in pole position.
Frank’s side were due to play Reading at the time of going to press, and after their first win against West Brom since 1948 Frank told the club’s website: “It’s game on. We have a chance now [for automatic promotion]. The most important thing is we focus on the next game and we recover well. We literally can’t use this for anything if we don’t top the form against Reading.
“I’m not saying we have to win, but we have to top the form. That’s vital. Then football is football and you can go inside the post or outside the post. We need to turn up and we should do, because we look good, we look strong. We look in a good place. Our defensive performance was bang on, spotless. We did well.”
Goalscorer Watkins added: “We can only hope and work hard and deliver good momentum on the day.”
The Bees had command of the first half and took a lead into the break after Watkins converted from close range. The hosts had to withstand some difficult moments after the interval, but did enough to get over the line.
The goal came after 16 minutes with the first effort of note.
Tariqe Fosu played his part with a run on the right and then spread the play. Saïd Benrahma took the pass on and fed back from where it had come, to the marauding Josh Dasilva, breaking into the penalty area.
The first touch took away the option of a shot and he instead pulled the ball across to the arriving
Watkins, who poked in on the stretch.
The striker’s 23rd goal of the season was one of few efforts on goal in the first half. David Raya only had one save to make, when he held on to a long-range free-kick from Grady Diangana, and West Brom largely played in front of The Bees, but the visitors spent more time defending than attacking in the first period.
Brentford had a solid defensive base and held their own in an even midfield battle.
West Brom made changes at the interval, switching out two of their front four, and would have known they needed to go up a gear in the second half – and the changes certainly made a difference.
West Brom controlled the start of the second period. They had more pace in the attack, were first to loose balls and forced Brentford into errors, but they could not break through.
Meanwhile, QPR lost for the second time after the re-start, this time 1-0 at Charlton Athletic, the goal coming from a Darren Pratley header via a corner in the first half.
Boss Mark Warburton bemoaned his team’s inability to score for the second game running and told Sky Sports: “It’s small details in terms of giving away a soft set piece, seven yards out in the middle of our goal.
“That can’t happen. You then give a team something to hang on to. In the second half it was one team in it really, but we couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net. They defended with real aggression and resilience, with good centre-halves.
“We had good chances and we could have equalised a minute into the second half and the whole game changes. But you saw we dominated possession and its not about that it’s about having that cutting edge in the final 18.
“I’m amazed when I hear we have nothing to play for. You are playing for the club shirt, absolutely. We let ourselves down when we lost 1-0 at home and we lost again 1-0 when we didn’t get our reward.”
■ A Ross Barkley goal gave Chelsea a 1-0 win at Leicester City in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup to set up a semi-final clash with Manchester United. The other semi-final sees Arsenal paired with holders Manchester City.