Brentford-Mad's review of the Season - February

After encouraging performance during January the club were eager to press forward in an attempt to keep the good momentum and good run of results which had seen them hit 8th place by the end of the month.

Boss Martin Allen was playing down his sides chances of reaching the playoffs but confidence was high and it was possible to see the bees sneak up the playoff candidates at the moment and maybe sneak a chance to reach the Championship.

We started off this month with a tricky home game against an in form and fighting relegation Milton Keynes Dons, a penalty for Hunt was enough to beat them 1-0 and move us up into the final play off position.

Next we had a chance to reach the FA Cup 5th round, Hartlepool stood in our way and in a very close match Brentford defeated them 1-0 with a goal from Isaiah Rankin.

The FA Cup was seemingly spuring Brentford on to achieve great things in the League also as the cup run didnt at all seem to be affecting our play in the League, if anything playing against good quality opposition was bringing out the best in our team.

Next up came our biggest game of the season, a trip to Premiership Southampton and the St Mary's Stadium for a fifth round clash which will go down in Bees folklaw.

Southampton raced into a 2-0 lead but with fighting spirit and an impressive goal from Rankin we got ourselves back into the game. One goal down we held out through endless Southampton pressure but managed to claim a goal of our own through Sam Sodje to force the game to a replay back at Griffin Park and a massive chance to get through to the 6th round.

Back to League business and we faced Hartlepool who were now free of FA Cup duties thanks to us and they got revenge with a 3-1 win at Victoria Park. We then faced another massive game against the improving Sheffield Wedneday at Griffin Park, 3-1 down it seemed as if the Bees were going down to consecutive defeats again however goals from Peters and a 93rd minute equaliser swept home by Hunt meant that we survived a massive scare and won one point to bush ourselves back up into contention.

March was surte to be a crucial month, the first day of it would see us face our FA Cup destiny. Also because of poor results and several draws from the sides around us, we had the chance through games in hand to get up into play off contention.