Brentford 3, Southampton 1

Fourth season: Farewell Ivan

It was perhaps unfortunate for Southampton that the Bees should entertain the newly-promoted club on such an auspicious occasion. Brentford had lost to Liverpool at Anfield – no shame there – but the Saints were far from marching on following goalless League defeats by West Brom and Newcastle and now were taking on the Bees as they waved goodbye to star striker Ivan Toney.

He was watching the game here before bowing out and heading off to his new home, the Saudi Arabia club Al-Ahli. But first there was the matter of, hopefully, disposing of Southampton and earning three points to push them up the League table.

Come the final whistle against Brentford, the visitors found themselves propping up the Premier League with only Everton below them. And there was only one goal – a late, late show – as reward for their efforts in three matches.

Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls – even if Brentford couldn’t ring it more than once in the first half, Southampton, for all their energy, looked lost when trying to penetrate a defence more resolute than of late.

Deft-footed Damsgaard in the thick of it watched by Saints’ scorer Sugawara

Yoane Wissa’s shot-on-the-turn would have been no more than the home crowd expected had it been directed elsewhere than into the arms of goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, making his debut after losing out in a high-class competition with ex-Brentford David Raya at Arsenal.

It was about then that a diversion appeared in the shape of a lone pigeon; yes, a pigeon, all on his own, pecking at the grass and showing every sign of being happy not to fear the football as long as the footballers left the pigeons alone. Which seemed to be fair enough, especially as at that time there appeared to be a chronic dearth of pigeons in and around the Gtech.

Brentford’s first goal came a couple of minutes before the break, when Kevin Schade fired a cross-shot that beat Ramsdale only to rebound from the far post. Mbeumo, idling in open space until then, carefully resubmitted the ball back to the goal upright, but this time just inside it.

Both ball and Wissa cross the line

Once play resumed, so did Brentford’s opportunistic pressing and Southampton’s occasional foraging into the opposition’s goalmouth, if they made it that far.

Centre-forward Adam Armstrong tried valiantly to make enthusiasm make up for his lack of height, while the physical Ben Brereton Diaz was a bruiser of a striker. Goodness what the pigeon made of him.

And so to the next goal, one more to Bryan Mbeumo’s taste, one suspects. This time it was Mattias Jensen who supplied the ammunition for a beautifully placed goal, sent into a space where Ramsdale wasn’t absolute certain there was one.

Wissa, Bryan’s partner in goal-plunder since Toney moved on, snatched the third, driving the ball and his body over the line at a post. He and Mbeumo have developed a knack regarding working in tandem, with one determined to match the other in scoring. A neat combination trick if you can pull it off.

Wissa stays strong

In a late flurry, Southampton staged a wave of attacks and with no more than two minutes left Yukinari Sugawara scored a perfectly decent goal, mildly irritating for most of the Bees and a bit more so to Mark Flekken as he saw his clean sheet bite the dust.

What is likely to be Ivan Toney’s last appearance at the Gtech Stadium – barring social occasions and odd friendly matches – was suitably celebrated by the the two players who have benefited from much of his inheritance.

Most fitting was that the three goals were shared by Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, who flourished when playing with and learning from him. Thomas Frank paid fulsome praise and damp eyes were the order of the day.

‘That’s all very well,’ said my mate Charlie, ‘but who’s going to do something about that pesky pigeon?’

Brentford: Flekken; Janelt (substitute Lewis-Potter 75m), Pinnock, Collins; Ajer (Roerslev 39); Damsgaard (Fabio Carvalho 82),  Norgaard, Jensen; Schade (van den Berg 75), Wissa, Mbeumo.

Southampton: Ramsdale; Stephens, Harwood-Bellis (Dibling 56); Bednarek; Walker-Peters, Aribo (Lallana 82), Downes, Smallbone (Mateus Fernandes 46); Sugawara; Brereton Díaz, Armstrong (Archer 46).

Bill Hagerty is a contributing editor to the Bees United website.

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