It was a comfortable 2-0 win for the Bees with new signing Akaki Gogia and Stuart Dallas scoring to seal the victory.
Stoke didn’t seem to want to win and this was probably because they were going straight to Heathrow after the game to fly off to France.
It didn’t take long for the Bees to start creating chances. 6 minutes in and we had our first clear chance of the match. Andre Gray stormed through the Stoke midfield and smashed the ball toward Stoke goalie Jack Butland.
It took a good save from new Stoke no.1 Jack Butland to deny the ball hitting the back of the net.
We had our first corner and after bringing a specialist set piece coach in I had high hopes that our corners would have significantly improved from last season. I was wrong.. All the corner did was put us in danger of conceding when Walters broke on the counter attack.
Thankfully this didn’t result in a goal as loanee van Ginkel could only manage a tame effort on goal which was simple for Button to grab onto.
We took the lead after 32 minutes of action at Griffin Park. We definitely deserved the goal although it was very lucky. New signing Gogia cut inside and lined up his shot with Ryan Shawcross being in the right place at the right time for the Bees.
The ball deflected of his head and went flying over a hopeless Butland into the goal. 1-0 to the Bees.
We made it 2-0 with 16 minutes left. The second goal came from a corner so maybe this new set piece coach is working. Alan Judge’s corner found Dallas at the far post and the Northern Ireland international did not hold back by smashing his shot into the back of the net from a tight angle.
Another strong performance from this new look Bees team. It was good to see all the new signings at Griffin Park for the first time and I was particularly impressed with Bjelland and Barbet in defence, Kerschbaumer in midfield who completely controlled the midfield area and didn’t stop running, and also Gogia who looked lively up the pitch.
I’ll also say that Jota played brilliantly. The Stoke defence had no idea what to do. I think he is going to have a great season.
Roll on the 8th of August.
COYB
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