Brentford 1 (5)–(4) 1 Sheffield Wednesday
by Layth Yousif
BRENTFORD keeper Mark Flekken was the Bees’ hero as Thomas Frank’s side reached the last eight of the League Cup on Tuesday evening.
The 31-year-old Dutch keeper saved Liam Palmer’s effort in the penalty shootout to help Frank’s side beat Sheffield Wednesday 5-4 on spot-kicks, following a 1-1 draw after 90 absorbing minutes in west London.
“I went to the wrong side twice at the start. That doesn’t help your confidence in a shoot-out, but luckily I saved the last one,” admitted Bees’ modest match winner Flekken.
Brentford had gone ahead through Kevin Schade’s early goal before Djeidi Gassama’s excellent strike after the interval levelled for the visitors.
Despite making five changes to the side that beat Ipswich 4-3 in a Premier League thriller at the weekend, Bees boss Frank picked a strong team to face Wednesday — with Ben Mee and Jayden Meghoma moving into the backline, while Mathias Jensen, Fabio Carvalho and Schade were drafted into attack.
Owls boss Danny Rohl made nine changes from his team’s 2-1 win over Portsmouth at the weekend — with only Max Lowe and Anthony Musaba keeping their places in the visitors’ starting XI.
With the atmosphere still reverberating from an ear-splittingly rousing rendition of The Beatles’ Hey Jude, not to mention the vociferous travelling support from south Yorkshire, Frank’s side started with intent.
The dominance soon told when Schade slotted one into the onion bag on the 11 minute mark. The goal came after Owls keeper Pierce Charles blocked the first attempt, but the ball fell kindly to the 23-year-old former Freiburg attacker after the rebound hit Wednesday’s sliding number 33 Gabriel Otegbayo, leaving the Bees number seven to make no mistake second time around.
Eight minutes later the home side could have doubled their lead, but Keane Lewis-Potter’s looping effort from Bryan Mbeumo’s cross was palmed away by keeper Charles.
Five minutes before the interval, Charles parried Mbeumo’s powerful low drive prior to Mathias Jensen steering his effort narrowly wide moments later as Frank’s side went into the half time break ahead, even if the scoreline did not reflect their clear superiority over the Owls.
However, sloppy play from the Bees 12 minutes after the interval led to Gassama picking the ball up and drilling a low effort from distance that beat keeper Flekken to equalise — sending the vociferous travelling Owls fans in a crowd of 16,701 into rapture.
As both teams strived for a winner during an increasingly frenetic climax, Charles blocked Schade’s effort with only 10 minutes remaining, after Yoane Wissa’s intelligent ball into the box.
Wednesday swept up the other end forcing Flekken to tip over Marvin Johnson’s rising drive as both sides entered the dreaded penalty shoot-out having given their all.
“It is one step closer to what we want to do, we want to go all the way,” boss Frank reflected afterwards, saying: “Our mentality was great, the players worked hard. It was more [our] quality.”
