Brentford-Mad's Review of the Season - April

Last updated : 10 June 2005 By Smallsy
March was yet another frustrating month for Martin Allen and his Brentford side.

The Bees had finally sucummed to Southampton's Premiership quality and now with potential fixture congestion because of the cup run heading their ways, Brentford were stuttering towards the top six and a possible playoff place.

If they wanted to secure that place then April was the time to do it, wins in a relatively 'easy' month would mean that the Bees would almost certainly make the end of season games however with Hartlepool, Bournmouth, Sheffield Wednesday and Bristol City all chasing the Bees hard it was going to be more difficult than it looked on paper.

We started the month off with a good 2-1 win away from home against bottom side Stockport, although they had pushed us hard a goal from Scott Fitzgerald eventually won the game and kept us in 7th place.

Next up came Bristol City at Griffin Park who were beaten 1-0 by a Sam Sodje header in the second half, the Bees were finally picking up consecutive wins and at home they were becoming formidable, posessing the 4th best record in the League.

We faced upto a big challenge next as we played Tranmere on a warm Tuesday night for one of our games in hand, it was very fiercly contested game and we appeared to be on for an impressive 0-0 draw when Turner popped up at the end of the game to steal in at the back post for a 1-0 victory.

Full of confidence we headed to Yorkshire to play Bradford City with a win securing a playoff position and a spot in either 3rd. 4th or 5th at the end of the season. We looked tired as we went down to a heavy 4-1 defeat with two being scored by Dean Windass.

After the Bradford disapointment we had an oppertunity to yet again secure Playoff action against Huddersfield but a great goal by Abbott led the Terriers to a 1-0 victory. With two tough defeats the last things we needed was an away game at Luton, 70 minutes in and things looked good as we'd come back from 1-0 down to lead by a goal and looked set to be claiming that 4th place.

Late goals from three different Luton players however condemnedus to our 3rd consecutive defeat and pushed us back down to 7th.

Throughout March the Brentford players looked tired and jaded, they did well to pick up three good ins but threw it away with 3 consecutve defeats which could have harmed they hopes of reaching the top six.

Martin Allen was frustrated once again that his side had led all their good work slip away, luckily their destiny was on their own hands and all the Bees had to do was win one of their last two games to reach at least sixth place. For us this position was fortunate as non of the teams around us were picking up points either and it looked to be going down to the wire.