Brentford took the derby honours by beating QPR
FLORIAN Jozefzoon’s fabulous finish brought Brentford within a point of the play-off places as the Bees beat Queens Park Rangers in a scorching west London derby.
On a sweltering afternoon at Griffin Park, the sun was shining on the hosts as Brentford sensationally soared to eighth in the table, turning up the heat on Derby and Millwall ahead of tougher final fixtures.
No Championship team has dropped more points from winning positions than Dean Smith’s side, who squandered a two-goal lead at Loftus Road earlier in the season, but they kept cool on this occasion to recover after Ollie Watkins’ penalty was saved before the break.
“The message before the game was not to get emotional and I was impressed with how we played with clear heads to hold onto a well-deserved win,” Bees manager Dean Smith emphasised. “We were sloppy in the second half and gave the ball away a bit too cheaply, but I thought we were excellent overall and caused our opponents plenty of problems.
“We deserve to be where we are in the table with two matches to go but unfortunately we are still not in the play-off places,” he added. “We have got to take it game by game. All that matters is that we do everything we can to try and get there on the last day of the season.”
Brentford had to dig deep after a missed opportunity inspired an equaliser at the other end as Idrissa Sylla cancelled out Sergi Canos’s wonderfully-worked opening goal on the stroke of half-time.
The Bees enjoyed by far the better of some energetic opening exchanges, launching into their style of unapologetic attacking and looking like they were the team with nothing actually riding on the game.
They made their momentum count after a quarter of an hour, taking a deserved lead in the aftermath of a corner. John Egan leapt up at the near post to head the inswinger across goal, Yoann Barbet controlled the ball bril- liantly before letting rip from the right of the six-yard box, and Watkins managed to guide the looping rebound towards Canós, who rifled the ball up high into the roof of the net.
QPR fought hard to force their way back into the encounter but left themselves exposed on the break. Watkins frightened the life out of the Rangers defence with his power and pace and forced some fine saves from Matt Ingram. The two were the protagonists again when Ingram brought Watkins down inside the penalty area but the concussed goalkeeper somehow buried himself onto the spot-kick.
The tide briefly turned as Sylla popped up for the first time in the match to offer Rangers a lifeline, scoring from close range after some excellent interplay between Massimo Luongo and Paul Smyth.
The derby remained hot on and off the field in the second half, with tackles flying all over the place, but Brentford regained control with 20 minutes when Jozefzoon cut inside, sold the defender a dummy and netted a winner that could play a crucial part in the play-off shake-up.
“It was a good game for the neutral,” the defeated coach Ian Holloway said afterwards. “It was a ferocious local derby and we were on the wrong end of it, so all I can say is well done to Brentford, to their high-class manager and his staff. They had the identity we are currently lacking.”