Watford 1 Brentford 1
From the BBC Sport website:
The Championship's top scorer Ivan Toney held his nerve to score from the spot and earn 10-man Brentford a draw at fellow promotion hopefuls Watford.
In a frantic five second-half minutes at Vicarage Road, Brentford's Ethan Pinnock was sent off for bundling over Ismaila Sarr in the box and Troy Deeney drilled home the resulting penalty. Toney then sent Ben Foster the wrong way after Christian Kabasele was penalised for handball.
Vladimir Ivic's hosts thought they had won it when sub Stipe Perica headed in a Sarr cross but it was disallowed for offside despite the Croatian striker appearing to be level with the last defender.
But defeat would have been harsh on Brentford, who were dominant before going down to 10 men and created several first-half chances.
Watford move up to third, three points behind the top two and two clear of the sixth-placed Bees, who are unbeaten in 12 league matches.
Toney headed wide unmarked from close range, spectacularly struck the post from 25 yards and prodded off-target, while Bryan Mbeumo fired over in a first 45 minutes during which Thomas Frank's visitors controlled the midfield but could not find the finishing touch.
After Pinnock brought down Sarr referee James Linington mistakenly red-carded his team-mate Mads Bech Sorensen before eventually correcting his decision, and Hornets skipper Deeney went for power from the spot to score.
Toney stayed calm to do the same with his penalty and move onto 16 Championship goals for the season.
Watford are now unbeaten in 17 matches against Brentford in all competitions, their longest unbeaten run against any opponent since joining the Football League in 1920.
Head coach Frank was booked after things got heated on the sidelines but his side ended up being rather fortunate to come away with something to show for their display.
Watford boss Vladimir Ivic told BBC Three Counties Radio:
"We played against a good team who play football, who came and created a lot of good situations in the first 45 minutes. They used the space, we couldn't adapt and they had some good chances.
"For me it's not normal that we concede a goal immediately after we score - with one player more, we need to find the reason this happened because it's not the first time.
"The last 20-25 minutes we should have attacked more from wide because we had a lot of space, but we tried to play the long ball without reason."
Brentford manager Thomas Frank:
"It was one of those situations where you could ref a penalty, I will go that far, but it is not one of those situations where it was 100 per cent a pen. I would like to see that in a VAR room and see what they say but I understand why it could be reffed.
"That was not the thing that made me passionate. That was the red card. I know a ref can give a triple penalty but, for me, you can't do that in that situation.
"I don't know if they were in doubt or stressed or whatever but they managed to give Mads Bech the red card first. Four refs together managed to give the wrong player the red card. That is why I am in doubt whether they managed to nail that situation."
No comments:
Post a Comment