Uruguay’s Christian Stuani scored his sixth and seventh goals of the season before Albert Adomah kissed and made up with Aitor Karanka upon registering one of his own. Once the music stopped, Middlesbrough had risen to second in the Championship.
An evening transformed by Adomah’s second half liberation from the bench ended with Boro looking convincing promotion candidates but earlier Brentford had played well enough to suggest their current lowly position is false.
The Riverside was rocking the last time this pair met. That balmy May Teesside night saw Boro canter past Mark Warburton’s then side in the play-off semi-final before surrendering to Norwich at Wembley. Brentford had just reached their highest league position since 1947 but this achievement failed to prevent Matthew Benham, the professional gambler who owns the west London club, from dispensing with his services.
It seems Warburton was too big on the “human factor” for the board’s liking, paving the way for the arrival of Marinus Dijkhuizen, a Dutch coach happy to work within the club’s statistics based “mathematical modelling” analysis system used to scout and recruit players as well as refine tactics.
A lot of clubs, Boro included, take increasing notice of such data these days but few are quite as evangelical about it as Brentford. It is early days and the new manager has welcomed a raft of new signings but with his team’s stutters so far this term have brought the old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” adage to mind.
Aitor Karanka has made a few changes of his own over the summer – most notably persuading Stewart Downing to exchange West Ham for a return to Teesside and falling out with the influential Albert Adomah. While Downing started on the left of the attacking three in the home team’s 4-2-3-1 formation, Adomah’s presence on the bench following a spell in the metaphorical deep freeze suggested reconciliation was in the air.
In a rather Adomah-esque manoeuvre, the wonderfully dynamic Emilio Nsue overlapped from right-back to create a shooting chance that a stretching David Nugent could only direct wide. Then Christian Stuani conjured another decent opening for Nugent. Although Brentford’s Marco Djuricin might have done better than dispatch a left foot chance of his own similarly off target, Karanka’s team had the better of the first half.
That said, Daniel Ayala needed to be sharp in central defence on a couple of occasions as, commendably, Brentford at times attempted to take the game to their hosts. With Alan McCormack clearly determined to prove that Boro’s Grant Leadbitter was not the only influential central midfielder on view things became interesting.
Maxime Colin’s duel with Downing was turning into an intriguing subplot, with the former England winger discovering he could not quite waltz past the visiting right-back on the outside. No matter; Downing’s low, viciously bent free kick gave David Button quite a fright as it momentarily threatened to squeeze into the bottom corner.
Brentford’s goalkeeper had no answer to Stuani’s sixth goal of the season and fourth in four games. The Uruguayan striker capitalised on smart approach work from Nsue and Diego Fabbrini to unleash a right-foot shot that ended up in the bottom corner via the inside of a post.
Although Nugent had the ball in the back of the net before the break, an offside flag ruled it irrelevant. Unfortunately for Karanka, Lasse Vibe’s equaliser at the outset of the second half proved absolutely legitimate. It was down to a goalkeeping error, Dimi Konstantopoulos being caught out by a deflection off Ayala that left the ball bouncing towards him at capricious speed. He attempted to gather it but it swerved out of his grasp, leaving Vibe to steal in anuse his right foot to d level matters.
The 20,000 plus crowd were dismayed, their mood only brightening a little when Adomah’s liberation from the naughty step saw him replace Fabbrini. Seizing this reprieve, Adomah swiftly made his presence felt wide on the right and his cross created a second goal slammed in left-footed by the excellent Stuani from close range.
Suitably encouraged, Adomah then scored himself. An imperious right-foot shot unleashed after being cued up by Nugent’s surging advance brought a huge cheer. Another followed when he immediately raced to Karanka and the pair shared a warm technical area embrace.
