Brentford come of age, ready to finally have parties in their new house

It was just nine months ago that Brentford came to Wembley but didn’t show up. Without sounding like a male glib about the ordeal and wonders of pregnancy, nine months can be a long time in football.

On Saturday, it was Swansea who repeated their 2020 experience and froze on the day while Brentford, without actually being their most spectacular, showed the immense team and individual ability that has brought them so close to promotion many times in the recent past.

Although Emiliano Marcondes won Man of the Match, inevitable as the scorer of the game’s only non-penalty goal, three other players deserve mention for their role in the triumph.

Bryan Mbuemo created both goals. For the first, he ran onto an excellent Sergi Canos through pass.

“The choruses behind Raya of “Bees up Fulham down” must have been as musical as anything sung to the tune of “Knees Up Mother Brown” can be or ever has been.”

He slowed and withheld his run with precision to force the outcoming Swansea keeper Freddie Woodman into being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Mbuemo was always seeking a penalty rather than a shot.

In truth, it was a poor decision for Woodman to leave his line as he would have stood a fair chance of saving any shot, as Mbuemo was also heading away from goal at pace.

Ivan Toney, who had an unaccredited role in the second goal, converted the penalty with an essence of calmness solely reserved to the Middlesex side and frequently lacking from their opponents.

All Brentford FC

The second goal had Mbuemo’s artistry at its core. Picking the ball up inside his own half, he made a driving run into the heart of the Swansea defence. Well to his right, and probably unfindable with a pass, Toney was waving him on majestically like an inebriated windmill waiting for its lover to walk up the platform at Paddington Station.

Whether Toney’s waving gave instruction, encouragement or merely distracted the defenders, it was a superb decoy to allow the latecomers Mads Roerslev and Marcondes to arrive into the space Toney had created with his marvellous decoy run.

With the same cool shown by Toney at the penalty, Mbuemo, then Mads Roerslev and finally Marcondes completed the transformation of Mbuemo’s aggression into a goal.

Some Brentford fans have waited a long time for top-flight football
Photo: Steve Clare

Ethan Pinnock is the second Bee who deserves to be singled out.

It wasn’t Swansea’s day but even if it had been, they would have encountered a rock at number 5. He commanded his penalty area and often the space in front, frustrating everything the Swansea creative engine could cook up.

It should not be overlooked that the Glamorgan side had 56% of possession without managing a single shot on target. That plaudit belongs to Pinnock and his Scandinavian allies, Swedish captain Pontus Jansson, and Danes Henrik Dalsgaard, Roerslev and Mathias Jenssen.

23-year-old German Vitakly Janelt, added last October, protected them from anything further in a Brentford career propelled perhaps prematurely by Christian Nørgaard’s injury-plagued season.

My third player of the day had little to do. Swansea didn’t have a single shot on target. But goalkeeper David Raya had ghosts of his own to exorcise.

In the August final, Fulham’s Joe Bryan beat him with an innocent 40-yard free kick in his near corner as Raya expected the obligatory cross into the packed mob at his far post.

On Saturday he looked assured bar one punched effort that Andre Ayew put his head on under pressure. Beyond that, the Catalan keeper was a man with no worries and exuding confidence.

The choruses behind him of “Bees up Fulham down” must have been as musical as anything sung to the tune of “Knees Up Mother Brown” can be or ever has been.

Brentford can now look forward to welcoming their very patient fans into both the Premier League and their fantastic new stadium at the same time.

They’ve earned it.

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