Brentford-Mad's Review of the Season - December

Last updated : 06 June 2005 By Smallsy
After a difficult end to November which saw us picking up no points, even before our first League game in this month it was important that we started to get back on track before we started heading down a slippy slope towards the bottom end of the table.


The month started with a game against Hinckley in the FA Cup, a tough task away from home in front of BBC cameras on a Sunday afternoon. The game provided a welcome distraction for the team who were on the verge of a potential payday in the Cup third round.

Brentford dominated the game but when given a chance in front of his watching BBC co-pundits John Salako missed a poorly taken penalty and Hinckley held on for an unlikely draw.

Back to the League we faced a tough challenge taking on table topping Luton at home, the game was fairly even but 'The Hatters' failed to cope with the arial threat of Burton and Rankin and Brentford showed the fans what they could do against a top side eventually winning the game 2-0.

Next up came Mid-table Sheffield Wednesday who in front of their massive home crowd were beaten 2-1 by the might Brentford, with Burton scoring the winner to push the Bees back up to 5th.

Martin Allen's team seemed galvanized by two incredible victories and looked to take their newly found form into the FA Cup in the replay against Hinckley.

The game was a scrappy one with few chances as both sides wanted to progress to potentially face Premiership sides but Hinckley didn't have enough gas left in the tank and were beaten 2-1 as Brentford progressed to the next round.

Next up in the League game Colchester United who were on a poor run of form themselves in the League after playing three of the top four sides in sucession, Brentford used their good league form to propell themselves to a 1-0 win.

The Bees form dipped slightly as they were beaten 3-1 by Torquay away from home on Boxing Day and two days later thrashed 3-0 by Swindon at the County Ground, it appeared that the good work the Bees had done during December's early days had been undone over the festive period but teams around them also had poor results and at the turn of the year Brentford were sitting in 8th place, with playoffs rather than relegation in their mind.

The inconsistency of the club had been shown in a microcosum throughout this month. Poor performances against the 'smaller' sides and better ones against the 'bigger' teams in the division, the Bees were punching well above their weight but needed to iron out simple errors which seemed to be costing them defeats away from home.

Over the New Year Martin Allen was going to have to make his unit a lot tighter if he wanted to dodge a post Festive Season slide and he would have to make sure his side kept an eye on League form as well as attempting to progress in the FA Cup.