Aitor Karanka showed a nice line in understatement when he described his Middlesbrough side’s performance at Griffin Park as “not as brilliant” as the one they put in to knock Manchester City out of the FA Cup last Saturday. They were outplayed for large periods by Brentford; yet, thanks to Grant Leadbitter’s eighth successful penalty in eight attempts this season, Boro claimed a third successive win, which moves them to within a point of the Championship leaders, Bournemouth, and second-placed Derby, after the latter’s 2-0 win at Cardiff later in the day.
Boro also claimed a 14th clean sheet of the season, though it is something of a mystery quite how. “We said at half-time that today was probably one of our worst performances,” said their striker Patrick Bamford. “We got a little bit better in the second half and ground it out.”
The improvement was vast after the interval, but they could hardly have been much worse. After a spell with José Mourinho at Real Madrid, Karanka lists the Chelsea manager as a mentor. “Being with José for three years, I think the same as him,” he said this week, and at times in the second half there was something Chelsea-esque about Boro – though neither Karanka nor Mourinho would have been impressed by the ease with which Brentford were able to cut through the Boro backline in the first.
Before Brentford piled on the pressure, however, Boro had wasted the first opportunity of the game, with the usually reliable Bamford unable to control Jelle Vossen’s perfectly weighted pass across the box in the fourth minute. Then four times in the opening 20 minutes, the tightest defence in the Championship was carved open, although – on each occasion – the home side failed to take full advantage.
Andre Gray headed across goal and wide when he ought to have hit the target from Alex Pritchard’s cross; a clever free-kick created space for Jota inside the area, but his effort was tipped over by the Middlesbrough keeper, Dimitrios Konstantopoulos; Leadbitter cleared off the line from James Tarkowski’s bobbling effort; and Stuart Dallas pinged a shot against the post from the left corner of the area, with Konstantopoulos again getting a vital touch.
Boro survived the storm, but Brentford – who came into this fixture on the back of a three-match winning streak in the league – remained in control until two minutes before the break. Harlee Dean ducked underneath a long ball down the left, allowing Bamford to get his toe to the ball ahead of the outrushing David Button before tumbling over the goalkeeper’s challenge. The referee, Simon Hooper, pointed to the penalty spot, and Leadbitter calmly stroked the ball home for his 12th goal of the season.
The goal sucked the wind from Brentford’s sails and the second half was a far more even affair. Three minutes after the break, Vossen twice went close from successive corners, with one header well saved by Button and another flashing across goal, and, on the hour, Albert Adomah should have doubled Boro’s advantage, but sent his shot over the bar with the goal gaping.
Adomah’s miss was sandwiched between two fine Dallas efforts for the home side, with the left-winger volleying over from a corner and then sending a fizzing shot just high of the bar.
As the game went on, Brentford reasserted their dominance. Tarkowski hooked into the side netting with less than 10 minutes to go and there was a late flourish in the sixth minute of added time, when Ryan Fredericks made a superb block to deny Dallas, and Konstantopoulos followed suit to deny Jonathan Douglas with the final kick of the game.
