A poor display by Barnsley resulted in a 2 nil home defeat by a Brentford team fighting for survival, hovering just above the last 4. Paul Hart made 4 changes to the team which drew with QPR , bringing in Handyside, Lumsden, Nardiello and Turnbull, for the injured Murphy, Burns, Beresford and the rested Neil. And how it showed, Kay once again moved out from central defence on to the right flank with Austin moving over to the left, with Handyside moving into the center. It left Barnsley exposed for pass in the center of defence, which was exploited as early on as two minutes when a mistake by Haywood let Brentford break and with Handyside struggling to clear allowed Brentford to score form 30 yards.
Brentford continued to dominate all areas, and were first to every ball, and when they did lose the ball, they fought hard to get it back putting men behind the ball..
Hart made changes at half time moving Shuker to the left flank and Lumsden to a central midfield role, and it was Lumsden at fault initially which allowed Brentford to break yet again, this time Brentfords impressive jay Tabb taking the ball from halfway , outstripping Handyside for pace to slot the ball past debutant Turnbull.
Barnsley came close to scoring when after a goalmouth scramble, Austin smacked the ball against the stanchion only for it to rebound to safety.
The final whistle brought boo’s back to Oakwell for the first time since Gudjon left, and on this display, you could hardly blame the Oakwell faithful. Brentford came with a game plan and it worked, we just have to find a way to break teams like this down, (its easy to blame Brentford like that plantpot Turner did previously), but Brentford deserved the win.
We know have 3 games left with no hope of play-off positions, so now with no pressure on us, why not use the last 3 matches to give some experience to the younger players, season ticket sales will not be affected too much if we finish either 10th or 12th.
And on this performance today, I hate to say it , but I can’t see Handyside being here next season.