Brentford 2-0 Bristol City: Bees cruise to victory

By PA Sport

Saturday 1 April 2017 18:31, UK

Goals from Sergi Canos and Lasse Vibe settled a comfortable 2-0 win over in-form Bristol City that moved Brentford into 12th place in the Sky Bet Championship.

Brentford took the lead on 18 minutes, the unmarked Canos firing home an angled drive from the edge of the box after a clever ball from Ryan Woods unlocked the Robins' defence.

The Bees stretched their lead 10 minutes later when Vibe reacted quickest to Konstantin Kerschbaumer's flicked lob and steered a looping header over onrushing City keeper Frank Fielding. The win ended City's four-game unbeaten run and left Lee Johnson's side just one place and one point above the drop zone.

Brentford could have gone ahead after just two minutes when Romaine Sawyers played in Canos, who stung Fielding's hands with a swerving 25-yard drive.

The Robins had to wait until the half-hour mark for their side's first effort on goal, Joe Bryan skewing an effort just past the upright. However, two minutes later centre-back Aden Flint should have given the visitors a foothold in the game but he headed over when unmarked from close range.

City had to come out of their shells but were being outclassed by a slick Brentford side, which moved the ball about from flank to flank beautifully.

Bees skipper Harlee Dean almost deflected a driven low cross into his own net after a series of bizarre deflections, but keeper Daniel Bentley got down smartly to spare his blushes.

City's top scorer Tammy Abraham gave his side hope just before the break when he turned Dean and charged goalwards only to blaze his drive high and wide.

It was all Brentford in the first 45 minutes, with Sawyers and Ryan Woods running the midfield, but City came back into it in the second half and were unlucky not to claw their way back into the game.

Vibe was first to show after the break when his deflected shot forced a good save from Fielding, before Jota's low drive dribbled past the near post.

But out of nothing City almost scored on the hour mark when Abraham's sharp header from a whipped left-wing cross bounced back to safety off the far post.

Bees substitute Florian Jozefzoon had the linesman's offside flag to thank when he sidefooted Josh Clarke's low cross wide.

City saved their best for last, though, and could have left Griffin Park with an unlikely point as Bobby Reid flashed a shot into the side netting after a sharp turn on 81 minutes.

But when Abraham broke free a minute later and squared for Matty Taylor to drill his effort inches the wrong side of a post with the goal gaping, the City faithful knew the game was up.

Brentford boss Dean Smith:

"Our performance for 70 minutes was very good. We switched the play, played with pace and were very expansive, and some of the football was terrific. But we lost Sergi and Maxime Colin with calf injuries and then a few cramped up and in the last 20 minutes we got sloppy.

"We want to keep winning games and playing good football because we have half an eye on planning for next season."

Bristol City boss Lee Johnson:

"Second half we created more but we didn't start anywhere near well enough, and that's disappointing. We simply can't start like that and expect to go and win games.

"The way we've been playing I just didn't see this coming. It's so frustrating because you know we have quality in the team but we didn't hold the ball upfront, our defenders were too deep and I felt sorry for the lads in the middle.

"Once we retained the ball and changed shape at half time we got better, but by then poor defending had left us with too much too do."

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