John Brewin was at the Brentford Community Stadium this evening. His report has landed, so get clicking, people. Thanks for reading this MBM. Nighty night.
Christian Eriksen speaks to Sky. “All the emotional games, I’ve played them already. This was exciting, the first time playing against Spurs, so it would be special. I’m OK with a draw. We practice a lot of set pieces and we should have scored one. I feel mentally and physically in a very good place. I’m still a Spurs fan, so I hope they get in the Champions League.”
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Eric Dier talks to Sky. “At this stage of the season, a point is never enough. We came here to win and haven’t managed to do that. Last week we should have finished 0-0 and we didn’t, so at least this week we didn’t get complacent at the end. They made it difficult throughout, but we made it difficult for ourselves. We didn’t create enough chances. So it’s a bit of both. We had no shots on target again, but that’s down to me, down to everyone, if you don’t give the forward players the ball in the right positions. It’s not what we expect, the way we’ve been attacking. We haven’t been as fluid. Sloppy in possession, though we got better as the game went on. We’ve got no time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to win all our games.”
Spurs lose ground on Arsenal in the race for fourth spot, then. Given how poorly they played, and how Brentford got at them, a point is probably more than they deserve this evening. It’ll feel like two dropped rather than one gained, though. Hats off to the Spurs fans, who despite their disappointment, stay on to serenade their old pal Christian Eriksen. He stops and signs one of their shirts, making someone’s day. That’s a thoughtful touch, a lovely moment.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal | 33 | 12 | 60 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 33 | 18 | 58 |
| 6 | Man Utd | 34 | 2 | 54 |
| 10 | Leicester | 32 | -4 | 42 |
| 11 | Brentford | 34 | -8 | 40 |
| 12 | Brighton | 33 | -11 | 40 |
FULL TIME: Brentford 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur
It’s been a great week for Arsenal. For Spurs, not so much.
90 min +2: ... and now Kane nearly steals all three points with an outrageous effort! A cross in from the right. Kane, his back to goal on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box, curls a glorious overhead kick around Raya and inches wide of the bottom right! That would have been one hell of a goal. Still nothing on target, though.
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90 min +1: Brentford nearly snatch it in the first of three added minutes! Bentancur is booked for dragging down Dasilva on the right. Eriksen sends the free kick into the mixer. Toney rises highest, and for the second time tonight smacks a header off the frame of the goal! It twangs off the base of the right-hand post and away!
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90 min: Son stops just short of tying the ball up in a pretty bow and presenting it to Raya on a silver platter. He floats a dismal free kick straight down the keeper’s throat. The easiest claim Raya will make all season.
89 min: Moura wriggles clear of Sorenson down the right, and is hauled down for his trouble. A booking for the Brentford defender, and a free kick in a very dangerous position, just to the right of the box.
88 min: Henry whips a deep cross in from the right. Mbeumo rises highest at the far stick, but can’t stop the ball floating into the stand behind.
86 min: Moura comes on for Emerson, Tottenham’s last throw of the dice. They still haven’t had a shot on target tonight; they didn’t have one against Brighton last weekend, either. Impotence striking at the worst time possible.
84 min: A Brentford free kick in the middle of the park. It’s flung into a crowded box. Toney goes over, and makes a half-hearted claim for a penalty, but the referee waves play on.
82 min: Kane tries to pick up the pace with a drive down the inside-right channel, but just as he thinks he’s won a corner, the whistle goes, penalising him for a handball during the move. He fumes quietly.
80 min: Kulusevski makes a nuisance of himself again down the right and conjures up a corner out of nothing. Son swings it in. Jansson heads clear.
78 min: Brentford make a double change, replacing Jensen and Ghoddos with Dasilva and Wissa.
76 min: Kulusevski spins cutely and dinks a cross in from the right. Just too high for Son. Then Hojbjerg tiptoes along the byline to the left of goal ... and his cross just evades Son, too! Spurs getting a little closer with some improved play, though the bar is set low.
74 min: Sanchez comes on for Sessegnon, who might have tested his manager’s patience with that errant cross a few minutes ago.
73 min: A pause in play as Toney gets some running repairs. He’s taken an accidental boot in the face from Romero. Thankfully, he’s good to continue.
71 min: Son curls one in from the left. Easy pickings for Raya. Spurs still haven’t got an effort on target.
69 min: This is being played at 101 miles per hour. It’s really scrappy, but there’s a cup-tie feel to the game. Spurs may be entering New York or Bust mode.
67 min: Spurs counter quickly, forcing Jansson to take a booking for the team, cynically bringing Kulusevski to a halt. Spurs then force a corner, from which Bentancur flashes a header over the bar. Both teams are really going for this now.
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65 min: Eriksen sends a low drive whistling inches past Tottenham’s left-hand post. In fact, there’s a deflection. Corner ... and from the set piece, Jensen sends a header towards the top left, only to be denied by Kane’s clearing header on the line!
64 min: It’s Sessegnon’s turn to smile wryly as he sends a dreadful cross halfway down the M4. Safe to say, Antonio Conte’s not smiling. He quietly fumes in the dugout, disgusted with his team right now.
63 min: Eriksen batters the free kick straight into the wall, and smiles wryly. His radar’s been off for the last few minutes.
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62 min: Eriksen hits the corner long. Spurs look to clear, but Bentancur hesitates, allowing Toney to take up possession and buy a cheap free kick upon being instantly bundled over. A free kick just to the right of the D.
61 min: Emerson shapes to swing in, but instead plays a surprise reverse pass down the left for Mbeumo, who clearly wasn’t expecting it. He still wins a corner, though. Eriksen fires it in low, and earns yet another corner.
60 min: Mbeumo bothers Emerson down the left and wins a free kick. Eriksen to take. Everyone lines up on the edge of the Spurs D.
58 min: The corner leads to some panicked head tennis in the Spurs box. Emerson does well to head clear from his six-yard box with a few red-and-white-striped shirts lurking. Lloris eventually claims.
57 min: Mbeumo storms down the middle and has the opportunity to slide Eriksen clear into the box, but his pass left is misplaced. Brentford are forced to turn tail, but come back at Spurs again quickly, Henry getting the better of Emerson down the left. Corner.
55 min: Pinball in the Brentford box. Kane, Bentancur and Emerson all take turns to shoot. All efforts are blocked. Kane is beginning to make a nuisance of himself, though.
54 min: ... but all of a sudden, Brentford can’t get out of their final third, for the first time this evening. Kulusevski puts a ball in from the right that forces another corner. Toney clears, but Spurs are finally showing a little bit of desire up front.
52 min: Kane spins his shadow Jansson and takes a shot that balloons out for a corner on the left. One corner leads to another, which leads to nothing.
50 min: Toney, striding into the Spurs box on the left, has a dig. Blocked. The ball squirts wide right for Mbeumo, who leans back and lifts a shot over the bar.
49 min: Toney romps after a long pass down the right. He’s beaten to the ball by Lloris, who hacks clear magnificently, even if he did, for a split second, look to have mistimed his run. Had Toney been a bit sharper, he might have toed the ball around the keeper and zipped away. But ultimately it’s brave goalkeeping.
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48 min: Son and Kulusevski combine at pace down the right and nearly open Brentford up, but a pass infield is clanked straight out of play by Emerson. Spurs have clearly been told to step it up.
46 min: Dier passes back to Lloris, who doesn’t realise Mbeumo is closing him down at speed. The keeper hacks away just in time.
Brentford get the second half underway. No changes.
Half-time letters. “How over-served was Harry Kane in Augusta?” splutters Jeremy Dresner of Tottenham’s number one Scottie Scheffler fan. “This is like a two-week hangover! What is the drink of choice at those majors? I want to image Kane imbibing and get a mental image to rail at.” I’m sure Kane treated his body as a temple while swanning up and down Magnolia Lane, but if you need a confection for the purposes of anger management, imagine him getting stuck into a few plates of these ...
... and washing them down with a few gallons of this sweet nectar.
Half-time entertainment. Here’s Barney Ronay on the game that effectively turned the race for fourth into a north-London showdown.
HALF TIME: Brentford 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur
Another mild scramble in the Spurs box ends the half. Brentford will be happy with everything but the scoreline. On the balance of play, they deserve to be ahead. Antonio Conte makes off down the tunnel with the air of a man who is about to deliver a heartfelt soliloquy.
45 min: Sorensen sends another long throw into the mixer from the right. Lloris deals with the situation confidently. There will be one added minute.
44 min: Hojgjerg takes a cynical tug at the in-flight Mbeumo’s shoulder, and is pretty fortunate not to go into the book.
42 min: Kulusevski passes the ball straight out of play. Nobody in purple anywhere near it. This is pretty poor from Spurs, who one suspects will receive some beneficial advice delivered in the forthright style by their manager during the half-time break.
40 min: Kane attempts a floater from the edge of the box. It’s a floater all right. Spurs haven’t put Raya to work once.
38 min: Some good old-fashioned pantomime stuff as Antonio Conte catches a ball sailing past the technical area, then refuses to give it to Ghoddos, throwing it behind his own back instead. Plenty of theatrical booing from the home support. All good wholesome fun.
36 min: Eriksen, quarterbacking from deep, should find Toney clear in an absurd amount of space on the edge of the Spurs box. But he flays a dismal pass out for a goal kick. Spurs were wide open there, and that wasn’t like Eriksen at all.
35 min: Eriksen strokes a lovely pass down the right channel for Mbeumo, who should smack a first-time effort goalwards, but hesitates. The ball’s cleared out for a throw, which is dispatched back into the box in the Delapian style, but after a brief game of head tennis, Spurs clear their lines.
34 min: ... but that was a bit better from Spurs. Son has looked their most lively attacker. Kane, shadowed by Jansson, has been uncharacteristically quiet.
32 min: Son dribbles with purpose down the inside-left channel. He lays off to Sessegnon on his left, and is unceremoniously checked by Ghoddos while doing so. The referee plays advantage, with Sessegnon in acres. Sessegnon then hoicks out for a goal kick, and Son berates the referee for not awarding the free kick.
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30 min: Toney and Eriksen combine well down the middle, sending the ball into the box towards Mbeumo, who can’t get to it ahead of Lloris. Brentford have been the better side so far. Spurs don’t look like a Champions League chasing team right now.
28 min: Spurs haven’t created much, which partially explains why Bentancur larrups a dreadful shot high into the stand from nigh on 30 yards.
26 min: Toney hares after a long pass down the right and looks for Mbeumo in the middle. His low cross is bundled out for a corner by Davies. Nothing comes of the set piece. Spurs are getting plenty of practice at defending them.
24 min: This is a corner-fest. Sessegnon wins one for Spurs on the left. Sessegnon and Son then over-complicate things to a ridiculous degree, tapping a few short passes back and forth, before Sessegnon whiffs a kick, allowing Brentford to scurry off with the ball.
23 min: Nope, Kane heads clear.
22 min: Eriksen hits this one long. Toney disconnects from the pack in the middle, stepping back before sending a volley screaming towards the bottom left. This is deflected out for yet another corner. Brentford’s lucky seventh?
21 min: Mbeumo takes a quick throw down the left to release Toney into a little space. Toney wins yet another corner. This is a good spell for Brentford.
19 min: Actually, Toney shouldered that off the crossbar, rather than heading it. Anyway, Brentford come at Spurs again, and win their fifth corner of the afternoon down the right. They play it short, which is strange seeing the amount of trouble they’ve given Spurs with more direct deliveries, but there you go. Brentford overplay and Spurs clear.
17 min: Ghoddos crosses from deep on the right. The ball pings out for a corner. Eriksen sends an outswinger towards the far post. Toney beats Emerson easily and sends a header towards the top left. The ball clanks off the bar and away. Play is then stopped with Lloris accidentally flattened by Jansson.
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16 min: Some sterile possession for Spurs.
14 min: Spurs are beginning to find their range. They come back quickly at Brentford, and Sessegnon wins a corner down the left. Son’s flat delivery fails to beat the first man, and the hosts clear this one easily enough as well.
12 min: Kane backs into Jansson on the edge of the Brentford box and attempts to spin him. Sorensen arrives to help his team-mate and blooters out for a corner, from which nothing comes.
11 min: Toney is this close to sliding in and blocking Lloris’s clearance on the Spurs goalline. Sadio Mane would be impressed.
9 min: Bentancur, Son and Kane combine down the right to release Kulusevski into space, but Henry is across quickly to snuff out any notions.
8 min: Spurs are struggling to get a sniff at the moment. Brentford are winning pretty much everything in the middle of the park, and passing the ball around with confidence.
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6 min: The second corner from the left drops to Toney at the far post. He drives goalwards, but his shot isn’t getting through a thicket of players. Spurs eventually clear their lines. A confident, promising start by the hosts.
5 min: Brentford win another corner in short order, though, and Eriksen goes across to take it. He receives a warm reception from the away support. He sends the corner long. Toney and Mbeumo win a couple of headers, and it’ll be take two.
4 min: Spurs have already given the ball away a couple of times in midfield. It nearly costs them here, as Janelt hares after a loose ball on the right and rolls infield for Toney, whose low drive is deflected wide right. Nothing comes of the resulting corner.
2 min: Spurs draw a few pretty triangles down the right. Suddenly Kane shovels a pass along the channel for Son, springing his partner free. But the flag goes up for offside.
1 min: A late refereeing change: Martin Atkinson has replaced Andre Marriner as man in the middle.
Spurs get the ball rolling ... but only after everyone takes a knee. There’s no room for racism.
The teams are out! Brentford wear red and white stripes, forcing Spurs into a fetching reserve purple. Before everyone took to the pitch, Christian Eriksen warmly embraced several of his old Tottenham team-mates. We’ll be underway once the coda of Hey Jude fades out.
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Antonio Conte speaks to Sky. “Every game is important. It is important to look at ourselves, and not the other. The result of the other teams are important, but the best result has to be our result. We have to be focused. This game will be very difficult against a team who have won three games in a row.”
One of the 3pm results affects Brentford, though. Leicester played out a goalless draw with Aston Villa, opening up the possibility of the Bees making the top half of the table tonight. Admittedly they’d need to beat Tottenham by five clear goals this evening, but this is the way of it.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Newcastle | 34 | -15 | 43 |
| 10 | Leicester | 32 | -4 | 42 |
| 11 | Brighton | 33 | -11 | 40 |
| 12 | Brentford | 33 | -8 | 39 |
| 13 | Southampton | 33 | -16 | 39 |
The 3pm kick-offs have all finished, but the results make no difference to Spurs. Their task was laid bare by the 12.30pm kick-off, in which Arsenal tried their best to throw away a two-goal lead against Manchester United, but eventually won 3-1 to open up a three-point lead in the race for fourth place (or higher, should Chelsea continue their recent form). Over to you, then, Spurs.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | 33 | 59 | 80 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 32 | 61 | 76 |
| 3 | Chelsea | 31 | 39 | 62 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 33 | 12 | 60 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 32 | 18 | 57 |
Brentford make four changes to the XI named for the 2-1 win at Watford. Mathias Jensen, Saman Ghoddos, Mads Bech Sorensen and Mads Roerslev replace Ethan Pinnock, Kristoffer Ajer, Christian Norgaard and Yoane Wissa. Christian Eriksen will face his old club; Brentford have won all five games the Denmark international has started.
Spurs make just one change to the team selected for the 0-1 home defeat to Brighton. Ryan Sessegnon replaces Sergio Reguilon at left-back.
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The teams
Brentford: Raya, Roerslev, Jansson, Sorensen, Henry, Janelt, Jensen, Eriksen, Mbeumo, Toney, Ghoddos.
Subs: Dasilva, Wissa, Jeanvier, Fosu, Peart-Harris, Baptiste, Stevens, Young-Coombes, Lossl.
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Romero, Dier, Davies, Emerson, Bentancur, Hojbjerg, Sessegnon, Kulusevski, Kane, Son.
Subs: Reguilon, Sanchez, Winks, Rodon, Gollini, Bergwijn, Lucas Moura, White, Scarlett.
Referee: Andre Marriner (West Midlands).
Preamble
A couple of the Premier League’s form teams meet this evening in west London. Brentford have won their last three matches, and five of the last six. The signature win was that 4-1 rout of European champions Chelsea, but it’s all been highly impressive. The Bees, we may as well say it, are buzzing. Spurs meanwhile recently won four matches in a row, though that sequence came to a juddering halt last weekend with a miserable home defeat by Brighton. They’ve otherwise been scoring for fun, though; that four-game winning tear saw them run in 14 goals.
Champions League hopefuls Spurs simply have to go for it, while Brentford, comfortable in mid table and without a care in the world, can play with reckless abandon if they so desire. Throw in some love for Christian Eriksen, from both sets of fans, and this could all come together rather nicely. Kick off is at 5.30pm BST. It’s on!
