Leyton Orient 1 - Brentford 0

Brentford lost one nil to bottom of the table Leyton Orient on Friday night in another toothless league performance.

Scott dropped keeper Lee for Hamer in the only change to Tuesday's line-up but our cup heroes served up a pile of one dimensional dross.

The fact is that if one of our wingers doesn't shine then we are a largely redundant attacking force and, despite some decent possession, that was certainly the case last night. Myles Weston was unfortunately on Hartlepool and not Everton form. Nicky Adams, yet to fully fire in a Brentford shirt, was replaced with 20 odd minutes to go by Kirk Hudson - last night's random throw of the dice - who hasn't played a reserve game in his recovery from injury but was preferred in the squad to Sam Saunders.

In the centre of the pitch Dave and Kev simply didn't provide a close enough link to the forward line (this may be due to the manager's tactics to an extent). Toumani can put through the odd excellent through ball, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

This leads to the attacking pair getting more and more isolated. Alexander - who doesn't yet look quite like the product I'd seen advertised - holds the ball brilliantly sometimes but regularly gives it away too. I think he's carrying a couple of pounds if I am honest, and he also seems to be getting frustrated with the system.

Mac, for his part, chases and harries like a whirling dervish (I think he picked another knock up last night) but doesn't currently seem to have the goal scoring threat that he previously carried. Carl Cort came on and caused a few problems but Nicky Forster (brought on with 87 minutes on the clock) looks seriously out of favour with Andy Scott.

The decisive goal came in the 25th minute through veteran Scott McGleish - hard to tell exactly what happened but one of Pim of Hamer seemed to be slightly to blame. Hamer did OK overall despite the pressure of public support for cup hero Lee, whilst Osborne and Woodman continued their consistent recent form.

Spillane had an up and down game but there's something I like about him - he plays the game with a certain impudence. Indeed it was Micky who came closest to an equaliser for Brentford as he headed against a post in the first half. It's nice to have a fullback with some attacking threat though.

Without a creative spark in the centre of the pitch I'm concerned that reports like this might become familiar reading. We beat Everton on Tuesday by unsettling a team low on confidence by working hard - unfortunately Leyton used this same tactic on us last night.

Fatigue might have been a factor, but Rochdale didn't show any such symptoms when winning at GP a few weeks back following a Thursday night cup game.

We are assured that this squad is very very fit and that Scotty has confidence in it's strength in depth - although he seems very reluctant to give pitch times to the likes of Sam Wood, Sam Saunders, Nicky Forster, Leon Legge and David McCracken. Something isn't quite adding up right now.

Brighton await on Tuesday night and we play Charlton at Griffin Park next Saturday - let's hope the league table looks a lot better after those two games.

Oh and we really seem to miss the injured Robbie Simpson, let's hope he is back and fully fit soon.

Bees - Hamer, Spillane (Forster), Osborne, Balkestein, Woodman, Adams (Hudson), O'Connor, Diagouraga, Weston, Alexander (Cort), Macdonald.

With thanks to beesotted for their match report

September 27, 2010