Bees downed by Dale (From Your Local Guardian)

Brentford 1 Rochdale 3

9:49am Tuesday 31st August 2010 in Football By Simon Webster

Brentford slipped to the bottom of League One following another display of dismal defending as they slumped to a 3-1 defeat to newly promoted Rochdale at Griffin Park on Saturday, writes Simon Webster.

Despite playing against ten men for the last half an hour, the damage had already been done as the Bees gifted their opponents their goals.

Afterwards a fuming Andy Scott lamented his side’s sloppy defending: “We don’t get given goals like that, or opportunities. We need to fight for our goals and we give them up. It’s not good enough.

“You’ve got to take responsibility on the pitch as a group, dig in and pride ourselves on being hard to beat like we were before.”

Scott made just one change to the side that impressively saw off Hull City in the Carling Cup in midweek, recalling on-loan keeper Alex McCarthy in place of Richard Lee.

Despite a bright opening from Rochdale, Brentford had the first real chance of the match after seven minutes when Myles Weston did well down the left to win a corner, which Kevin O’Connor floated to the back post and Robbie Simpson’s header was cleared off the line.

The Bees fell behind shortly after when McCarthy could only parry a fierce shot from Andrew Tutte and Anthony Elding reacted quickest to head past the stranded keeper.

Craig Woodman saw his low free kick from the right cleared by Jason Kennedy, before Brentford drew level following a great run down the left by Weston, whose cross into the box was met on the slide by Simpson, who bundled the ball home.

Early in the second half Joe Widdowson brought down Toumani Diagouraga right on the very edge of Rochdale’s box, but Woodman’s free kick hit the wall.

Rochdale took a lead they never looked like losing on the hour mark when a patient build up was rewarded when Chris O’Grady’s low shot found the bottom corner of the net.

Dale extended their lead further only two minutes later when Tutte beat Woodman on the byline and his cross to the near post bounced off Kennedy’s body and into the net.

Kennedy’s joy was short-lived however, when he was shown a second yellow card and then a red for celebrating with the travelling fans behind the goal.

Despite enjoying a man advantage the Bees never looked like getting back into the game during a tepid closing quarter of the game.

In the closing stages substitute Carl Cort headed two chances over the bar to send the Bees faithful home frustrated and leave Scott with much to ponder as he contemplates sitting at the foot of the early league table.

Brentford: McCarthy; O’Connor, Legge, Osborne, Woodman; Simpson, Bean (sub Cort 71), Diagouraga, Weston; MacDonald, Alexander (sub Adam 64) Subs: Lee, Spillane, Balkestein, Hunt, Forster Attendance: 4636 Man of the Match: Robbie Simpson Goals: Simpson 27