BIRMINGHAM
KRISTIAN PEDERSEN’S thumping header put Birmingham’s turbulent summer behind them as Brentford were left to rue the absence of Neal Maupay.
Bees boss Thomas Frank played down the fact the Frenchman, last season’s 25goal top scorer, was missing, side-stepping questions of his proposed £20million move to Brighton and pointing to the fact he hasn’t featured in pre-season.
Whatever the reason, Frank couldn’t half have done with their star striker as he saw his side hit the woodwork three times and pass up a golden opportunity to start this season with a victory.
Frank ( below) said: “How frustrating was it? Quite frustrating.
“We put in one of the best performances in the first half for a long time at Griff i n Park — we outplayed them, outbattled them, everything.
“We created four major chances at least plus opportunities and they had actually nothing.
“I would say the goal is not even a chance — come on, he headed it into the top corner from outside the penalty area and how many times have you u seen that in the history of football?
“But that’s football, that at can happen. Overall we did more than enough to win the game.”
It wasn’t Brentford’s day.
Ollie Watkins, who is interesting Crystal Palace, hit the crossbar and then a post, while Emiliano Marcondes also rattled the bar.
Marcondes’s effort bounced back off the bar 60 seconds s after Watkins first thumped an effort on to it and then hen Birmingham took the lead a minute later with an outrageous goal. .
Steve Seddon, making his s full debut, debut arced a cross towards the edge of the area and Pedersen nutted it home with incredible power.
Brentford had much more possession than their visitors and popped the ball around well.
But Birmingham held on for their first away win in their first game of the season for 21 years.
Pep Clotet, who stepped up to become caretaker head coach when Garry Monk was sacked in June, said: “I’ve got mixed feelings.
“We could have done better in some parts of the game and others we did very well.
“But when it comes to attitude and hard work, in that we were really good.
“It’s a very good result but I’m not 100 per cent happy with everything, I see a lot of things I want to improve.”
QBRENTFORD BIRMINGHAM 3 .........Shots on Target..........1 9 ........ Shots off Target........ 0 3 ..........Blocked Shots ......... 0 6 ................Corners ................2 10 ..................Fouls ................. 12 710 ........Total Passes ....... 234 85.1.... Passing Success ..55.6 75.6 ........Possession ....... 24.4 46.4 ..Territorial Adv% .. 53.6