Don’t Judge Lee’s Bees just yet

LEE Carsley warned his Brentford players not to get too far ahead of themselves despite an explosive start securing the Bees coach his first win as manager.

An Alan Judge double either side of Joe Mattock’s 25-yard thunder-bolt secured the Bees their first win in four and moved them up to 19th.

But Carsley admits he won’t enjoy the win for long with Wolves coming up on Wednesday night.

Judge’s opener came inside two minutes as he looped into the top corner from the edge of the box to give Carsley the dream start.

“We deserved this, we worked hard enough, the shape was good as a team and we got what we deserved,” Carsley said.

“We got off to a fantastic start, even from the kick-off we spoke about coming out and setting a tempo, and when you win the ball back from the kick-off you have the feeling it might be your day and the momentum can swing with you.It was just a great finish from Alan Judge.

“On the opposite side to that, the start in the second half was very poor.

“We were just a little bit slow coming out of the block and that’s something we’ll talk about Monday.”

Judge’s strike managed to calm the nerves inside Griffin Park with the Bees losing their first two under Carsley and with three defeats on the bounce.

Right-back Nico Yennaris drove down the right and his cross was only half-cleared for Judge to meet it on the volley.

But Brentford keeper David Button was called into action at the other end minutes later when he tipped onto the cross bar and out for a corner from Matt Derbyshire’s header.

The hosts settled and were neat, sharp and penetrative with their passing.

They should have had a second when beleaguered striker Marco Djuricin could only fire at Lee Camp from inside the six-yard box after good work down the left from Chelsea loanee John Swift.

Rotherham, who were dealt a blow in the warm-up when Danny Ward picked up a knock and had to be replaced by Aidan White, looked rattled until Neil Redfearn got them in at half-time.

The Rotherham boss, in charge of his first game, admits he’s got a lot on his plate to keep the side up after seeing them drop to second bottom.

“This is right at the beginning of a process, this isn’t going to change overnight,” he said.

“But there were a lot of good signs for us. I thought the performance was OK.

“We’ve got to make ourselves harder to beat, and more clinical in front of goal. The keepers made some good saves, so there were some good signs.

“We’re still in the process of looking at things, and seeing if these players need some help – we might have to look at that.

“By in large I wanted a performance today and to be fair I got one.”

Mattock’s strike at the start of the second half turned the game on its head as he rifled in from the leftside to stun the Griffin Park crowd into silence.

From there the Millers gained a foot-hold and looked to be on top until Judge’s header ten minutes later sealed the points.

Brentford then managed to see out a jittery six minutes of injury time and a late fight back from the visitors.