Brentford 2, Huddersfield Town 0

Jan 23 2006 By Mel Booth, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE arrival of David Graham could not be more timely for shot-shy Town.

A run of only nine points from 30 - including Saturday's ugly defeat at Griffin Park - leaves Peter Jackson's side in need of a significant pick-me-up.

In that spell, they have scored only nine times and they desperately missed suspended leading scorer Pawel Abbott and injured Andy Booth against Martin Allen's aggressive side.

Abbott at his best can trouble any side - he scored the winner at the same hostile venue last season - while Booth, particularly, has been Brentford's Nemesis for a decade and they were delighted to find out he wouldn't be playing.

Town lost because of blunders by goalkeepers Paul Rachubka and Phil Senior for each of the Brentford scores (from Lloyd Owusu and DJ Campbell) and also because they lacked quality around the opposition box.

Time and again Town pressed and held the territorial advantage, but they registered only two efforts on target in the whole game as play too often broke down because of a bad final pass or shot.

It was frustrating for the 450 Town fans who made the journey to West London and bitterly disappointing for the team, who know they were well short of their best after losing the lively Chris Brandon with a nasty head injury caused in the incident which earned Brentford skipper Ricky Newman his marching orders.

Debate has raged about Jackson's 4-5-1 formation and whether it should have been changed earlier than half time against 10 men, but Town's problem throughout the whole, ill-tempered game was that they didn't pass the ball well enough at vital times.

You can't legislate for individual errors like the ones which haunted Rachubka and Senior, but Town had only themselves to blame for not making better of plenty of possession.