If beating Crystal Palace on the opening weekend raised expectation at Brentford, then Sunday’s trip to Anfield had the effect it was always likely to have: bringing the Bees right back down to earth.
Anfield felt like the place all teams go to die in recent years, but Brentford might have sensed their chance here. For the first time since October 2015, sat in the home dugout was a manager not named Jurgen Klopp.
When Yoane Wissa won a free-kick deep in his own half after 12 minutes, Nathan Collins wasted no time in pinging a fine cross-field pass to Keane Lewis-Potter which caught Liverpool napping and soon Brentford had a corner.
It was the sort of quick thinking any team needs to have any chance of leaving Anfield with a positive result, yet it indirectly led to the hosts’ opener, which came from the subsequent corner as a lucky bounce aided Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz. The rest was history, as Bryan Mbeumo and Mads Roerslev were left in that unenviable two-v-two and came out worse off.
The Bees had problems defending counter-attacks last season too, and Collins will remember the 4-1 home defeat to Wolves as one such afternoon.
LUIS DIAZ!!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) August 25, 2024
What a counter-attack this is from Liverpool 😍💫 pic.twitter.com/wjWfsPxJU8
Sure, Brentford had conceded the opener through a counter and would eventually give up Liverpool’s second to Mohamed Salah on 70 minutes in similar fashion, but they deserve plaudits for the way they defended for long periods here.
Kristoffer Ajer and Ethan Pinnock made crucial blocks from goal-bound shots, and the ever-improving Mark Flekken had to make saves from Andy Robertson, Ibrahima Konate and Salah to keep the score down and keep Brentford in with a chance.
Speaking of chance, Thomas Frank addressed his side’s odds of winning this match on Friday when he said: “If you look at the odds, it’s odds against. At home they are so frightening.”
Too true. But Brentford lost 3-0 here last season and made more a contest of the fixture this time around. Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai were given too much time on the ball, yet Wissa and Mbeumo and Lewis-Potter did have opportunities to run at Liverpool and took them. Shots on goal, though, proved an expectedly rare commodity.
One first-half move summed that up. Wissa got away down the left and instinctively crossed once he had reached the byline. Mbeumo had slowed his run, though, and so the ball curled harmlessly through into the care of the Liverpool defence. Might Ivan Toney have been there to pounce? He continues to be left out of the fold amid a potential exit from the club. Unlike last weekend, the lack of a striker’s presence harmed Brentford here.
They have Southampton, Wolves and West Ham to come in the next few weeks, and you sense the wins should take care of themselves. Frank, however, wants his side to take more of a chomp out of meetings with the traditional ‘big six’.
Anfield is a tough place to start in that regard. It proved so again.
