Five star Bees

Brentford romped in a 5-1 win over Crewe today with strikers Farid El Alagui and Clayton Donaldson claiming a brace each.

The win was the perfect tonic for Tuesday’s disappointing 3-1 loss against Yeovil with Brentford roaring out of the blocks and dominating the first half. Uwe later described the opening 30 minutes as the best he has seen since he has been at Griffin Park.

Brentford welcomed Kevin O’Connor back to the team in the place of the injured Adam Forshaw whilst Harlee Dean returned from a dead leg to put in a dominant display at the heart of defence.

Kev added some early no-nonsense rigidity in the opening minutes whilst a Sam Saunders free kick caused mayhem in the box before Tony Craig fired over. Donaldson opened the scoring in the 13th minute with a very smart shot on the turn before Farid doubled our lead, bustling onto a loose ball at the back to fire home superbly before racing off to the bench to kiss his lucky coin.

Crewe edged their way back into the game – the excellent Logan clearing up a dangerous ball into the box and the visitors also wasting a close range header. Brentford nerves were settled however when Farid scored his second just before half time. Cue more excitable coin kissing.

The visitors pulled a goal back shortly after half time, exploting acres of space on their right flank before Mathias Pogba smashed the ball home past Simon Moore.

Brentford almost increased their advantage immediately from the re-start with Farid – who has an incredible hang in midair – heading over a corner after Donaldson had again terrified the Crewe defence.

Paul Hayes came on for Farid and his physicality also caused some problems for the visitors whilst the referee and linesman had ten minutes of giving fouls for any form of physical contact by a Brentford player.

Harlee Dean eventually made it 4-1 to the Bees, powering home a header from Saunder’s cross before Clayton grabbed his second – with the help of a deflection – in the last minute of normal time.

Overall it was an excellent display with some great passing football – Harlee Dean was majestic at the back, ably supported by some great ‘mopping up’ by the pacy Logan. Why we considered letting Logan go in the summer is beyond me. Kev did the simple things well whilst Dave covered a lot of ground in the first half.

We appear to have three very capable forwards at the club now – three ‘adults’ if you like – and they should cause a lot of problems this season if they get the right service.

It seems churlish to be at all negative in this match report but the left back position remains a problem. Barron’s positional play was woeful at times, although we did look slightly more solid when Craig switched across. Hopefully Mr Rosler is back on the phone to David Moyes as we speak.

All in all though it was a great day to be a Brentford fan.

Bees – Moore, Logan, Craig, Dean, Barron (Legge), Saunders (Forrester), Kev, Douglas, Dave, El Alagui (Hayes), Donaldson

Subs – Lee, Fredericks, Redwood, Dallas