Sam Saunders felt Brentford B lacked sharpness despite scoring five against Bedfont Sports
By Joe Acklam
10th Nov 2022 | Football
Sam Saunders felt that Brentford B lacked a bit of attacking sharpness despite scoring five in their 5-2 Middlesex Senior Challenge Cup win against Bedfont Sports.
Speaking to club media, he said: "It was good to get some minutes into some of the lads that probably haven't been playing as much recently.
"It was good to get Michael [Olakigbe] some minutes as it was his first start since joining us so it was good to see him out there and get a goal which will do his confidence the world of good.
"It was a slack goal that we condeded, a disappointing one from our point of view. We knew we were expected to win tonight, and we knew that coming against a team on an astroturf pitch in a low block meant it would be hard to break them down.
"To give them a leg up made it difficult, but the boys showed some good character and responded really well.
""They showed some nice bits of quality, and we went in at half-time 2-1 up after missing a couple of chances as well.
"The half-time team talk was relaxed but myself and Neil felt the team could have been a bit sharper in the final third.
"We felt the majority of the team could raise it a few notches and to be fair in the second half they did really well, and it looked quite comfortable in the end."
The Bees fell behind after four minutes when Sam Evans ran in behind the back line to receive a long ball and slammed it past the onrushing Roco Rees.
It took Brentford a while to respond after squandering multiple chances, but on 40 minutes Kyreece Lisbie was found wide on the left and as Olakigbe made a distracting run through the middle, Lisbie floated a cross which caught out the Bedfont 'keeper and dropped into the net.
Then Brentford went into the lead as Nico Jones threaded a pass into Isaac Holland and his first time pull back was blocked straight back to him and he curled it home.
Ten minutes into the second period the Bees extended their lead when Lisbie fired a shot from outside the box which was too hot to handle for Cairo Richards and Olakigbe was on hand to tuck home the rebound.
Bedfont continued to hang around and on the hour mark got a goal back as Tayshan Hayden-Smith's deflected drive deceived Rees and found the back of the net.
15 minutes from the end Brentford made the game safe as Roy Syla scored from the rebound of Alex Gilbert's penalty and then Jones scored a powerful header from a corner to make it five.
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