Brentford 1 - Charlton 1
"You're not famous anymore..."
Brentford earned a deserved draw against big-spending, high-flying, yadda, yadda...Charlton.
After a fairly dull first half, with a subdued atmosphere from the 8,300 odd crowd - well the Bees contingent anyway, the Charlton lot were quite lively - the game burst into life early in the second half when Carl Cort slotted the ball beneath the keeper for the bees to lead 1-0.
This was soon followed by sustained pressure from Charlton - who always looked lively on the break - which inevitably ended in a goal via a stonewall penalty awarded when Lewis Price came rushing out of his goal and upended the Charlton forward. The penalty was struck fiercely down the middle which Price got a hand to but not enough to divert it from goal.
Price had quite an impact on the game in the first half too, firstly diving to his left to make an excellent save at full stretch and secondly when coming off his line to be lobbed with the ball just drifting wide of the upright. In theory he made the job more difficult for the forward but it just smacked of being a repeat of the Bristol Rovers goal.
Cort's early second half goal brought the game to life and after Charlton's equaliser the bees got into the game more, had two good shouts for handball in the area when attacking - one seemed absolutely dead on - and Saunders smashed a free kick against the bar. Charlton always looked dangerous on the break but Pim and Legge looked very commanding. Kev did a fine job of breaking the game up and playing the simple ball. Weston was brought on to stop their full back's overlapping runs which he did to good effect and got some good attacking moves going too.
Although Strevens and Cort appear to be similar players we did look much better in the second half when Cort replaced the ineffectual Murphy. Man of the Match was Dickson first half and Cort second half. Is that allowed?
Bees: Price; Foster, Legge, Balkestein, Dickson; Bostock (sub Saunders 64 mins) Bean, O'Connor, Wood (sub Weston 59 mins); Strevens, Murphy (sub Cort h/t)
Charlton: Elliott; Omozusi, Llera, Semedo, Basey; Sam, Spring, Bailey, Wagstaff (sub Shelvey 54 mins); Dickson (sub McKenzie 78 mins), Sodje
Ref: Andy D'Urso [Rubbish!]
Thanks to beesotted for their match reports.
This follows two 1-0 away wins at MK Dons and Gillingham and sees Brentford staying eleventh in the table.
December 29, 2009
