Brentford aren’t getting enough credit for outclassing Spurs
There has been too much focus on Tottenham’s apparent shortcomings rather than Brentford’s brilliance in Saturday’s hammering of the north London side, says journalist and Bees fan Ian Westbrook…
After Brentford’s 7-0 pre-season friendly win over Eintracht Frankfurt I said I didn’t want to get carried away with my hopes for the campaign based on that match.
I am still trying not to get too excited following Saturday’s stunning win over Spurs, but given the level of our performance it’s becoming hard to remain grounded.
Mamadou Sangare had the sort of dominant debut he could only have dreamed of, while Keane Lewis-Potter was superb and showed why Keith Andrews again picked him at left-back despite more regular defenders Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey being fit.
In fact nobody played badly and, despite missing a penalty, Igor Thiago worked as hard as anyone in another good all-round performance.
However, and as so often happens when the Bees beat one of the big six, pundits focused on why Spurs lost rather than why we won.
There was all the talk about how much money Spurs had spent and how their big-money signings like Sandro Tonali were well off the pace.
Others said Brentford had “bullied” Spurs, which always sounds like an insult to me – insinuating that we roughed up our visitors, which was far from the case.
For example, they failed to mention the quality of the opening goal in a move of 15 passes, including a brilliant one-two between Sangare and Dango Ouattara.
Alan Shearer on Match of the Day did sing our praises, but too many of the headlines were about Spurs looking as bad as they were last season.
Still, everyone at the club has always been happy to stay under the radar.
Even the TV companies are ignoring us for the moment, with only one of our four October games moved for live coverage.
That is fine for me and other match-going fans, who much prefer Saturday 3pm kick-offs.
However, if we can continue this level of performance, then it won’t be long before Brentford, and not our opponents, are the headline-makers.
