True redemption, perhaps, would have been to score with a Panenka, but Enzo Le Fée didn’t quite have the chutzpah for that. His duffed dink at Brentford last season was the low point of one of Sunderland’s two worst performances of the season, but he converted from the spot with eight minutes remaining to earn a point in a battle of two physically aggressive and well-drilled teams who must look at the chaos elsewhere and be thinking again of top-half finishes.
It had seemed that it would be a tale of Brentford’s newfound strength in depth and a second-half turnaround as they overcame a rocky first period to have the better of the second after a triple change at half-time – having already lost Nathan Collins. But instead it was a Sunderland substitute who made the key contribution, Wilson Isodor being pulled down by Keane Lewis-Potter at the back post to earn the penalty.
These are not normal times. Clubs up and down the Premier League are in flux, undercooked and struggling to deal with a flurry of late signings. In that context, it’s reasonable to wonder what the ceiling for Brentford might be. They narrowly missed out on Europe last season, but with this squad and rivals wobbling, a first qualification has to be the target this time round. Business done early and wisely, Brentford are the poster club for what now seems an old-fashioned model of team-building, one that doesn’t lead to flustered final-day sprees or competing private jets in the runway at Lyon airport. They may rely on algorithms and the data-led unearthing of hidden gems, but there is at least a sense of a squad being built for footballing rather than financial reasons.
The sense with Sunderland is always that they’re rather more effective when there is no expectation that they will make the play. Countering dangerously, often through the erratic and unpredictable stylings of Nilson Angulo, they had the four best opportunities before the break: a Dan Ballard volley was ruled out because the debutant Kevin Danso was offside and in the goalkeeper’s eyeline, Le Fée smacked a shot against the post and twice goalbound efforts were blocked in the six-yard box, once by Jannik Schuster and once by Brian Brobbey, who got in the way of that rarest of things, an on-target effort from Noah Sadiki.
Keith Andrews’s half-time shake-up worked. Brentford looked far more comfortable after the break, and Igor Thiago had already headed a close-range chance straight at Robin Roefs when Vitaly Janelt put Brentford ahead after 57 minutes, meeting Nordi Mukiele’s diving headed clearance at the top of the bounce and steering a controlled slice into the top corner.
Angulo, who scored for Ecuador against Germany at the World Cup, remains an enigmatic presence, at once robust and delicate, cunning and naive, deft and clumsy. At times, not obviously related to the game going on around him, he will simply stop, and waggle his legs around as though stirring paint with his feet. One volleyed flick with the back of his ankle to return an overhit cross to the middle was remarkable. He is a master of accelerating and suddenly slowing to create space, control immaculate, then at other times he will simply charge out of play. The only thing harder than marking him, perhaps, is playing alongside him, trying to work out if a cross is ever going to come. He is a magnificent agent of chaos, that is clear; whether he is a high-grade footballer is less obvious.
He was far less involved after the breakthough and quickly taken off, as Aaron Hickey, one of those three half-time changes, got much tighter to him than Michael Kayode had been. Mamadou Sangaré, having dominated the 3-0 win over Spurs, found life rather harder against Granit Xhaka and Sadiki but Brentford now have options on the bench. Yehor Yarmolyuk came on for him and imposed himself far more. Jaidon Antony, similarly, offered fresh energy in replacing Dango Ouattara.
But while Sunderland’s lack of incision remains their one glaring weakness, they had just about enough to haul themselves back into the game so those spurned first-half opportunities will not be rued too much.
Leave a Reply