Brentford vs Stoke City - Extended Highlights Analysis
Titanium Janelt smashes Potters as Bees win from behind - 27/02/2021
Brentford 2 - 1 Stoke City
27/02/2021
15:00
Brentford Community Stadium
1 minute - Brentford 0 - 1 Stoke City - Jacob Brown
Brentford went behind early on in typical Bees fashion as the game started with Stoke trying to attack quickly to take advantage of a clear weakness in our defence, from kick-off the ball was played long into Stoke’s left channel but Henrik Dalsgaard immediately won the header and marshalled the ball off for a throw in. Stoke struggled to keep possession from the throw-in and were harried by a triangle of Ivan Toney, Tariqe Fosu and Josh Dasilva and were forced into crossing into the box. The area was unmanned by Stoke players and Mads Bech Sørensen took the incoming ball down first time with his left foot and passed back to Raya, Raya was then closed down and attempted to pass back to Sørensen but his pass was intercepted. Tommy Smith took the ball from it’s pathway to Sørensen and cut back immediately to Jacob Brown who struck the ball first time into an open net giving Stoke the lead.
This was a difficult goal to accept for Brentford as up until Raya received the ball we’d done little wrong, Dalsgaard won the header from a long ball moments after kick off and had managed to usher the ball out of play when Stoke won possession of the second ball. Stoke had little options available at the throw in and were forced into putting an early cross into the box with no options inside, this is where two mistakes were made that essentially handed Stoke the lead. The first and most glaring mistake was made by David Raya, once Raya received the ball from Sørensen he either should have cleared the ball or passed it to the outside of Sørensen rather than his inside.
When watching this goal unfold in real time I initially thought Sørensen made a mistake in passing back to Raya and that his pass may have put the Spaniard under pressure, however having watched the play back Sørensen was being closed down quickly by Tommy Smith and had he tried to have taken another touch of the ball or dribbled with the ball he most likely would have been tackled by Smith. The logical option as the ball came to him was to play it first time to Raya, which created an extra second or two for the Bees to keep possession and try to make the best decision in what to do with the ball. In this moment we can all agree that Raya did not make the correct pass to Sørensen when a cuter pass to the outside of Sørensen was needed to play the ball out in this scenario. Ultimately he probably should have just cleared the ball, but did Sørensen fail in creating space for the ball to be passed to him? Once Sørensen passes to Raya he begins to run forward diagonally and the direction of this run combined with Smith’s pressing meant that he was not a great option to pass to, however if Sørensen had drifted directly to the left of the goal taking the position of a very defensive left back then Raya’s pass to Sørensen would have been on and Brentford would have had a counter attack down the left hand side with Bryan Mbeumo free in space further up the pitch from Sørensen.
Now this isn’t to say that Sørensen should shoulder the same amount of blame for this mistake as Raya should, if there isn’t a clear pass on then the keeper should have looked to play it long. But this is a result of Brentford’s policy to always attack, to play positively and not to play the game safe. This is a style of play that is drilled into the team and knowing that players are challenged by the coaching staff to consistently create goal scoring chances it is safe to assume that Mads Bech Sørensen failed in creating an appropriate outlet for Raya who was looking to spark a counter attack. In another team that isn’t as aggressive in how it wants to score goals David Raya may have instinctively cleared the ball, but in this Brentford side it is instinctive for Raya to look for an attacking outlet and had Sørensen picked up a safe position close to the by-line to receive Raya’s pass we could instead be talking about a very swift and incisive counter attack from the Bees rather than a horrendous own goal.
32 minutes
Stoke may have had the lead but they’d created very little throughout the half up until this point, they won a free-kick just inside the Bees half after Vitaly Janelt clattered Jordan Thompson by the half-way line. Stoke played the free-kick in to the right hand side of the box directly towards Harry Souttar who was being marked by Mads Bech Sørensen, this might have been a ploy by Stoke to take advantage of Sørensen who may have been deemed a weak link, Souttar climbed overs Mads to head the ball as Mads looked to back into the Stoke defender to push him off course. Souttar’s header dropped down to James Chester who was standing unmarked in the box as both Saman Ghoddos and Tariqe Fosu were too slow to close him down, Chester played the ball forward for Nick Powell to volley but David Raya managed to put his body in between the ball and the goal.
The two main errors with defending this free-kick happened as the ball came into the box, Mads Bech Sørensen should have done better to compete for the first ball in and in the end was very clearly beaten to the ball. Secondly James Chester managed to find himself free in the box, it’s difficult to work out who was meant to be marking Chester as it seemed that Sørensen was covering both Souttar and Chester as Ethan Pinnock took a more central position marking Jacob Brown. The nearest players to Chester were Tariqe Fosu and Saman Ghoddos who should have been more alert to the danger Chester possessed, Chester was standing free a moment or so before Souttar headed the ball down and had Fosu of been watching for danger in the box rather than the ball he would have had an extra second or so to close down Chester which would have been enough as Chester kicked the ball to Powell as Fosu caught up in line with him. Ghoddos put in a very lethargic effort to close Chester down, slowly jogging towards the defender before the ball was kicked to Powell.
There was a lot of detail there regarding Fosu’s tracking of James Chester and the reality of it is Tariqe Fosu is primarily a winger who’s job is to create and score goals, it can be difficult to be so harsh on someone who’s footballing instincts are based around receiving and giving the ball, but in a set-piece scenario it would be fair to ask for a higher sense of defensive discipline from attacking players than in open play where concentration levels may naturally drop. The same here applies for Ghoddos, Saman had nobody to mark in the space he was covering and Chester had fallen into space by himself moments before Souttar had headed the ball, if Ghoddos had reacted instantly to Chester finding space rather than Souttar heading the ball to him then he could have tried to win possession back, but more importantly had Ghoddos of sprinted at any point throughout this move he would have been able to put a tackle in on James regardless.
37 minutes
Brentford had a corner taken by Saman Ghoddos that found the head of Winston Reid who fired the ball over, in the end it was a headed effort that Reid will be disappointed that he didn’t get on target. What was interesting though was how Reid found the ball so easily, he almost set up in a triangle with Mads Bech Sørensen and Henrik Dalsgaard leading at the front with Winston behind. As Ghoddos began to play the ball in both Henrik and Mads pushed forward taking the nearest defenders with them, one followed Mads, the other was forced along by Henrik and this gave Reid a free header on goal. It was a well worked tactic that could see us benefit from more now as Reid begins to play more games.
46 minutes
After a poor first half the Bees came out fighting and came very close to equalising, Bryan Mbeumo had the ball down the left wing and as he got to the area he dragged the ball back for Josh Dasilva. Unfortunately for Dasilva his shot was blocked by Tariqe Fosu and it looked like had Fosu of not blocked the shot then it would have gone in, it was still however a good moment for Dasilva who has struggled for form recently.
From a Bees perspective though the build up was full of real quality as it began with Mads Bech Sørensen passing the ball to Vitaly Janelt midway in Brentford’s half. Janelt had already looked up before receving the ball, which is very common from the German midfielder and he knew where he was passing the ball to before he had hit it. Janelt played a first time lofted ball with his left foot just into the Stoke half and it landed straight on Ghoddos’ chest, Ivan Toney who likes to drop deep at times received the ball from Ghoddos and played a nicely weighted ball through to Mbeumo. Had Dasilva’s shot of gone in then it would have been a superb move from start to finish, unfortunately it wasn’t to be but Janelt’s passing from deep really helped spark a threatening moment for Brentford.
56 minutes - Brentford 1 - 1 Stoke City - Vitaly Janelt
Vitaly Janelt scored a screamer of a goal from outside of the box that takes little description, a rocket effort driven from his left foot into the top left hand corner of the net that we would half expect Josh Dasilva to score. Now it’s funny that Janelt scored the goal in the manner in which he did as in the build up to it he’d actually stopped a passage of play for Brentford that could have created a goal from an incisive short-passing play that was driven by the run of Henrik Dalsgaard towards the by-line at the 6 yard box. Dalsgaard ran with the ball and laid it off to Ghoddos outside the area as he continued his run into the box, Ghoddos then passed the ball into the corner of the box to Janelt and as Janelt received the ball Dalsgaard was making a run behind him where he would have had the opportunity to square it across goal to either Bryan Mbeumo or Ivan Toney.
Now maybe Janelt felt the pass to Dalsgaard wasn’t on and was going to be blocked as he was being closed down, but had he of swivelled his body round as soon as he got the ball he would have been able to play the Dane in. Needless to say though Vitaly more than made amends for stopping this passage of play by scoring the goal of the weekend in the Championship, a brilliant effort that brought the Bees back level in the game and more importantly was another goal from this Brentford side that wasn’t reliant on Ivan Toney.
57 minutes
Nick Powell had a difficult attempt on goal inside the Bees area as he took a ball down on the half volley whilst trying to swivel his body around, he ended up shooting over and not really threatening David Raya but the bigger issue Brentford will have here is how easily the ball managed to get to Powell in the box. Stoke played a long ball from the half way line out onto their left channel to Nick Powell. Powell won the header against Henrik Dalsgaard and nodded it down to Jacob Brown who found himself in space as he turned away from Winston Reid the moment Powell headed the ball. Brown played the ball out to the left to Rhys Norrington-Davies who managed to beat Tariqe Fosu to the ball before crossing, Reid and Powell both went to head the ball and it wasn’t clear who won it but Reid fell to the floor and Powell managed to hit the ball on the turn.
The Bees will have been annoyed at how beatable they were by Stoke in that moment, Dalsgaard losing the ball, Brown receiving the second ball freely, Fosu not blocking the cross properly and Reid not winning the ball and clearing it. Fortunately however normal service resumed under the Reid/Pinnock partnership and Stoke created little.
79 minutes - Brentford 2 - 1 Stoke City - Ivan Toney
The Bees took the lead thanks to a fairly direct passage of play from Henrik Dalsgaard, the Dane had the ball just inside the Stoke half and played it long into the corner of the area towards Bryan Mbeumo. Mbeumo surprisingly won the header and knocked it back to Ivan Toney who managed to get a foot to the ball first and slotted it past the Stoke keeper, this was a real no thrills passage of play but it is an example of the dangers this Brentford team possess from playing directly.
Overall thoughts
The first half was a shoddy half for the Bees, neither side really created a lot but Stoke looked like the sharper team. Their pressing aimed to suppress our attack by preventing our defence from playing out, however it is not the first time this season we have seen a team attempt to run us out of the game only to knacker themselves during the second half. At this point in the season I feel like the players are losing a bet whenever we keep a clean sheet, for Brentford to take points from a game these days it feels like we need to score at least 2 or 3 goals as the opposition are guaranteed at least 1.
The second half was a much improved 45 minutes of football where Brentford could have scored 3 or 4 goals, Saman Ghoddos really picked up the pace in this half and was an ever present threat to Stoke be it through his pressing, passing or shooting. Ghoddos has had a mixed season but I feel the more he ends up playing alongside the forwards rather than the midfielders, the more attacking positions he can take and then the goals will follow as the one thing Ghoddos has been good at is linking up with Ivan Toney whilst playing in midfield.
It was good news all around for Brentford as Emiliano Marcondes and Christian Norgaard both made appearances in the second half, their presence in both the first team and the squad as a whole will be vital as we count down into the final games of the season now and look to play away to Norwich at Carrow Road in our next game.