Brentford vs Nottingham Forest

Brentford have the opportunity to make amends for their miserable defeat at Southend with a midweek game against Nottingham Forest. The visitors are not having a good season and are in no way guaranteed even a play off position. This is despite having Gary Megson at the helm as manager and seemingly buckets of money to spend on players. Recent purchases include the best striker in League 2, Nathan Tyson from Wycombe Wanderers for £750,000 and possibly the second best striker in the same division, Grant Holt from Rochdale for £300,000. Martin Allen is nothing if not predictable and makes changes from Saturday which not for the first time confuses the Bees fans. Stuart Nelson is dropped and replaced by George Bankole the 36-year old goalkeeping coach. The midfield consists of the dreadful Newman, Gayle, Tabb and Rankin. Thus Brooker and Tillen also appear to have been dropped. What is the current defence of O’Connor, Frampton, Turner and Sodje continue as does the forward line of Campbell and Owusu. Despite this game becoming a midweek fixture due to its postponement and Bees 3rd round FA Cup tie, a huge number of Forest fans find the time to attend and boost the crowd to almost 9000. The game is a cracking game of football and played not unlike a cup tie. Forest take the lead rather fortuitously in the 2nd minute. Bankole having emerged to punch the ball clear on the edge of the box is deemed to have made some contact with the ball outside the area. The resulting free kick hits the back of the net with a wicked deflection off a Brentford defender. After that the game is end to end stuff. To give Bankole credit he makes 2 very good saves and commits no more faux pas (if he did for the free kick as Bees fans in that vicinity provided their unbiased vocal views to the linesman as to a different opinion). The referee is dire and would have completely lost control of the game if it had been an aggressive match. He did manage to book at least 6 players including the Forest defender Julian Barnett whom he booked again and sent off midway through the first half. The game though was never a dirty affair though Forest were guilty of a series of professional fouls when it suited their cause. Bees equalised before half time through a short range knock in from Campbell and then battered the Forest defence most of the second half. A winning goal from either team though did not come and a final result of 1-1 flattered Forest. This was a decent performance by Bees and suggests that despite their failings a play off position is a reasonable aim whereas automatic promotion seems a long way distant. Newman was yet again the worst player on the pitch, totally ineffective in all that he did, which was not a lot. He did manage to commit the first foul of the game after 20 seconds! Gayle seemed tired and a little slow. Midfield is where Brentford have problems.