Brentford 3-2 Liverpool 
Report by Layth Yousif 
at Brentford Community Stadium

KEITH ANDREWS’S impressively vibrant Brentford side were too good for Arne Slot’s fading champions as the visitors lost their fourth Premier League game on the bounce, and their third against a team from London.

In a compelling contest on a raw Saturday evening in the west of the capital, Slot’s insipid side were second best after being overrun by a relentlessly determined Bees team, intent on creating as much chaos as possible along the Liverpool backline.

In front of 17,214 at the Bees’ atmospheric home ground, Liverpool’s passing ethos that won them the league last year now looks decidedly passe against more direct teams, leaving last season’s serene winners to now look a shadow of their former selves.

“Teams have a certain playing style against us,” bemoaned the increasingly beleaguered Slot after the match, saying, “which is a very good strategy to play, and we haven’t found any answer yet.

“Going 1-0 down doesn’t really help as well after five minutes.”

However, the previously unsung Andrews deserves huge credit for steadying the ship after Thomas Frank’s mid-summer departure from TW8 to N17, along with key playing personnel to Manchester United and Arsenal, sticking to the principles of hard work and amplifying a powerfully collective spirit, one that had elevated Brentford into the top division, and kept them there.

Forty-two years to the day, the then third division Brentford played the mighty Reds in the second leg of their League Cup second round clash, losing 4-0 at Anfield, and 8-1 on aggregate, after being whipped 4-1 in the first leg at the long-lost Griffin Park.

How times have changed, changed utterly. How Brentford have changed.

Now rightly established as one of the Premier League’s reliable components, a well-run club on and off the field, with a combatively renewed team, and a shiny stadium that replaced the homely but crumbling Griffin Park — its evocative but outdated old floodlights, and a pub on each corner — rising to the challenge to beat Liverpool for only the second time since gaining promotion to the elite back in 2021, posting only their third victory over the Merseyside giants since 1938.

With record £140 million signing Alexandre Isak injured, Liverpool boss Slot opted to recall Mo Salah against the Bees. Slot made three changes in total to the side that routed Eintracht Frankfurt 5-1, as Conor Bradley and Milos Kerkez also returned.

Andrews’s Brentford were unchanged from the team that won convincingly at struggling West Ham on Monday, preferring to play four at the back against the wobbling Merseysiders, rather than the more defensive five along the backline that the Irish coach employed at home in the 2-2 draw against Chelsea and the 1-0 loss to Manchester City earlier this season.

The home side’s dynamism was evident in the early stages, rewarded with a goal after only five minutes. Dango Ouattara hooking the ball into the net after Michael Kayode’s long throw was flicked in by Kristoffer Ajer, as Slot’s pensive side failed to deal with the aerial ball, leaving the lively Bees to get off to a flying start.

The opener ensured Brentford have now scored eight goals from throw-ins over the last two seasons. For an instructive comparison, no other top-flight side has more than two across the same period.

The visitors should have levelled on 20 minutes, but number seven Florian Wirtz’s drive fizzed low past former Liverpool keeper Caoimhin Kelleher’s right hand post. Shortly afterwards, Cody Gakpo worked space on the edge of the area, but his shot flew over the bar.

Undeterred by the Merseysiders’ forays forward, Brentford produced one of their own, when the impressive Kayode drove through the heart of Slot’s porous midfield, before space opened up for former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson.

The veteran’s face was on the front of the match programme, while memories were no doubt embedded in the travelling fans’ consciousness as the captain who lifted their first top-flight title in 30 years, during the Covid-hit 2019-20 season, as the 35-year-old drilled a low effort just the wrong side of Giorgi Mamardashvili’s right-hand post.

The Bees were buzzing and Ouattara was next with an effort, which though it failed to trouble Liverpool’s Georgian keeper said more about Brentford number eight’s determination to win the ball prior to unleashing his powerful shot.

Vitaly Janelt, an early replacement for the injured Yehor Yarmoliuk, who fell awkwardly forcing him to be replaced before the half-hour mark, fired a long-range effort that Mamardashvili tipped over the bar with a spectacular one-handed effort moments later.

The pressure was to tell eventually, when Kevin Schade made it 2-0 on 45 minutes. The 23-year-old German international slotting home after latching onto a superb through ball from Michael Damsgaard to double the Bees lead.

With Bees’ fans celebrations still ongoing, and three minutes’ added time announced at the end of the first half, Milos Kerkez scored from close range to reduce the deficit moments before half time, with a goal timed at 49:16.

With both sides keeping the same line-up after the break, the only change was, bizarrely, referee Simon Hooper replaced for the second half by Tim Robinson, with Hooper then acting as fourth official.

Slot took time to speak to Hooper, who was not fit enough to continue in the middle, presumably regarding his views on his side not being awarded a penalty for a coming together with Gakpo by Nathan Collins moments before Brentford’s second goal.

No matter, Brentford started the second half brightly, when Mamardashvili smothered Igor Thiago’s close-range shot, before the former Valencia keeper performed another superb save, diving full length to deny Damsgaard on 56 minutes.

The Bees’ bustling striker, and former bricklayer via Bulgaria and Bruges, Thiago laid the foundation for a memorable Brentford victory when scoring his spot-kick by rolling the ball calmly down the middle.

The penalty awarded after Virgil Van Dijk was adjudged to have kicked Ouatarra’s foot, with second half referee Robinson so convinced by the foul that he didn’t use the monitor during the VAR review.

On 65 minutes Ouattara should have scored, but his header went wide when well placed, following the impressive Kayode’s cross.

There were some nervous moments for home fans, when Salah scored with a clinical finish while underlining his superb technical ability, when hooking down Dominik Szoboszlai’s ball into a crowded box, before firing past former colleague Kelleher in one gorgeously fluid motion, to reduce the deficit to 3-2 to Brentford on 89 minutes.

Seven minutes’ added time just announced, which stretched to 101 minutes following an injury, but Andrews’s splendid Bees were not to be denied.

Speaking after the match, the Brentford boss, his side now up to tenth, a mere two points behind stuttering Liverpool in sixth, said: “I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I felt the teams were coming here and having a comfortable time. I really wouldn’t.”

Yet it was Slot who will be having nightmares about his side’s continued poor run, bordering on his first full-blown crisis of form during his previously storied tenure.