Boro are up next for Brentford and that means Warnock and Frank once again lock tactical horns.
It’s entirely understandable if that into doesn’t whet the appetite as thoughts of the last tie sends shudders down the pine of some. We won’t lie, it wasn’t one for the goal hungry football purists but instead enjoyable to those few sadists who relish continuous man marking and a commitment to cancelling out the opposition.
That’s slightly a dis-service to Boro, who defensively, moved back and forth between a 4-2-3-1 & 4-5-1. Knowing Brentford were still growing with Canos and Toney into the team we see today, Boro chose to completely block off the midfield with a double pivot closely patrolled by Lewis Wing, now of Rotherham.
Howson and Tavernier stayed behind the ball creating a box with McNair and Fry out of possession and Wing broke forward from midfield to try and get close to Akpom as the ball went forward.
Akpom did much of the central pressing as Coulson and Spence worked out wide to protect the wings and their fullbacks.
Basically, Boro blocked the middle third and stayed compact as a team leaving Akpom to act as an outlet. Even when Mbeumo came central, something that could confuse less prepared teams, Boro had him covered.
We’ve taken this clip to show how Mads Bech was left the time to step into midfield and the tight man marking of each of his options leaving him no open routes forward relaxed in the mid he isn’t going to drive much further forward.
Here it is again…
As an overall approach to the game, Warnock’s system nearly paid off as the former Brentford player Akpom had one of the biggest chances of a quiet game on the shot front.
No goals, one big chance each and a lot of battling around for space in the middle third, that’s enough of that one.
Where are the teams today?
Boro sit 7th in the league having played 27 games and amassing 42 points on the way.
Our Expected Points table likes Boro. They proudly sit 4th, ahead of Swansea, Reading, Blackburn and Bournemouth when apportioning out points through game by game expected attacking and defensive dominance.
Having scored 10 goals in the last two games, Brentford now lead the division for actual goals scored and are cruising nicely for underlying metrics in both attack and defence.
Bees have scored 18 more goals than Boro although there is much greater parity in defence. Boro have conceded two goals less than Brentford although expected goals conceded suggest Bees have been disproportionately punished in that area.
What may be of interest at this point is Warnock’s team are making many more passes into the final third than Frank’s. Brentford are low, 20th, on this metric compared to teams who we think of as getting the ball forward urgently. Rotherham, Stoke, Barnsley, Boro are to name a few of the 19 teams who all move the ball into the final third from the other two thirds more often than Brentford.
When we look at accuracy of balls moved into the final third we see Brentford shoot up the table to 5th.
If we think about how precise Brentford have now become this does make sense. Long balls tend to take the shape of switches of play to an alternate wing rather than central balls hit forwards towards Toney.
Homing back in on Boro, they’ve had a mixed bag of results. Blitzed by Rotherham as many teams are going to be in the second half of the season, Norwich City were kept out, with 1-0 defeats to Blackburn and Birmingham either side of a 2-1 win away to Forest.
Non-shot xG is reasonably kind to Boro and reflects most of what we see on the pitch. They prevent the opposition from having sustained periods of attacking pressure and because of this they fall marginally below the average for creating high quality situations themselves.
Don’t expect huge amounts of shots in this one. Boro are right up there at the top of the tree with Brentford for least amount of shots conceded.
Boro’s January business can only be described as active and has seen them bring in some well known names. Right-back Fisher joins form Preston, also joining him was Mendez-Laing, Bolaisie and Kebano from Fulham.
For Brentford, Frank’s team is kicking into gear ready for the second half of the season. Bristol City were swept away after they scored early last time out and genuine questions are starting to be asked of Brentford’s defence from set pieces and crosses into the box.
Raya has been blocked off on occasion and set pieces are finding their way into the back of the net. It’s a problem Brentford unfortunately have to deal with and has blighted them throughout the season, think goals against Bournemouth and Preston to name a few. If the attack at the other end wasn’t so prolific we wonder if we’d focus more this side of the game. Currently, it feels like Brentford are being disproportionately punished and a freshening up of defensive reinforcements, queue Winston Reid, who could help bring the goals against column back down to zero.
The graphic below shows the symmetry in match-ups and how congested this one is likely to be.