Rude Awakening For Bees

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Brentford 1 Bristol Rovers 3

Brentford were beaten 3-1 at home by high flying Rovers today after putting in a turgid first half performance.

CRASH - Rovers took the lead when our midfield failed to prevent a through ball which Bennett was unable to cut out leaving Chris Dickson to whallop the ball home

BANG - Indecision from Lewis Price allowed Dickson to lob home with the keeper in no man's land

WHALLOP - Cleveland Talor fails to track his man as fullback Lescott slots home a simple third.

In truth Brentford's shape was awful from the off with James Wilson and Sam Wood looking uncomfortable at fullback. Our midfield was also lacklustre and it was little suprise when Andy Scott made changes BEFORE half time, replacing Weston and Hunt with Saunders and Bean.

Brentford were better after half time and most supporters - and Andy Scott - felt that Rovers should have been reduced to ten men when former Bees loanee Mike Andersen brought down Kabba on the edge of the box. The referee ruled that there were covering defenders despite the fact that the ball and then a falling Kabba emerged first from the melee. I would also mention that Kabba could probably have stayed on his feet and rolled the ball home.

Brentford did score a goal when Charlie Macdonald - who looked back to his best after a worrying collision in the first half - lashed home on 58 minutes

The Bees were also left to rue a James Wilson airkick from close range as they pressed hard during the second period.

Overall though, we deserved to lose. One positive from the game might be that the first half's invisible midfield performance has forced Marcus Bean back into the reckoning. He HAS to start at Yeovil.

BEESOTTED'S VIEW - the problem in our shape after the injury to Ryan Dickson has caused us massive problems. With Dickson apparently still struggling a debut for Ryan Blake, or a loanee fullback would surely improve the team allowing Wood to return to left midfield. The jury is still out on Kabba and Cort so a short term striker deal should also be sought so that we don't start to slip down the table

Bees - Price, Wilson, Phillips, Bennett, Wood, Taylor, Weston (Taylor), Hunt (Bean), O'Connor, Kabba, Macdonald.

In the post match press conference Andy Scott said "We played too deep. Wide players were too deep. We hit too many long balls. Not taking touches. Giving the ball away in poor areas. Defended extremely poorly. And you then get punished."

"Not concentrating, not doing your jobs, not wanting to be ruthless, not accepting how teams are going to play, thinking you are better than you are; all of those things were a factor today."

"You`ve got to show a bit of character. The crowd was on their backs, quite rightly. We weren`t passing it and were conceding poor goals. But they did show plenty of desire and passion and we got clapped off at the end. "

"We dominated the second half and it would have been quite easy for the players to go out there and be scared and worry about what the crowd were going to do, bit they showed a lot of character and fair play to them."

"All the crowd want to see is you giving everything you`ve got and doing what you can for the Brentford shirt. We weren`t doing that in the first 45 mins and that is not acceptable. "

Thanks to Condorman and beesotted for the match report.