Uruguay’s Christian Stuani scored his sixth and seventh goals of the season before Albert Adomah kissed and made up with Aitor Karanka after registering one of his own. Once the music stopped, Middlesbrough had risen to second in the Championship.
An evening transformed by Adomah’s second-half liberation from the bench – (the winger created the excellent Stuani’s second) – ended with Boro looking the more convincing promotion candidates, but Brentford had played well enough to suggest their current lowly position is a false one.
“They made it difficult for us,” said Karanka, whose start to the campaign had been disrupted by a serious falling-out with Adomah. Reputedly about tactical discipline and squad rotation, it involved the winger having a transfer request rejected. “There’s no problem between us now,” said Karanka. “He knows how important he is for the team. He was perfect for us tonight.”
The Riverside was rocking the last time this pair met. That balmy May, Teesside night saw Boro canter past what was then Mark Warburton’s side in the play-off semi-final before surrendering to Norwich at Wembley.
Brentford had finished in their highest league position since 1947 but this achievement failed to prevent Matthew Benham, the professional gambler who owns the west London club, in dispensing with his services. It seems Warburton was too big on the human factor, thereby paving the way for the arrival of Marinus Dijkhizen, a Dutch coach happy to work within the club’s statistics-based mathematical modelling scouting analysis system.
A lot of clubs, Boro included, take increasing notice of such data these days but few are quite as evangelical as Brentford. It is early days and the new manager has welcomed a raft of new signings but the old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” adage seems somewhat pertinent.
With Adomah’s exchange of the metaphorical deep freeze for the bench suggesting Karanka was set on repairing things, Boro began brightly. In a rather Adomah-esque manoeuvre, the wonderfully dynamic Emilio Nsue overlapped from right-back to create a shooting chance that a stretching David Nugent could only direct wide. Although Marco Djuricin might have done better than dispatch a left foot chance of his own similarly off target, the Teesside team had slightly the better of the first half.
That said, Daniel Ayala needed to be sharp in central defence on a couple of occasions as, commendably, Brentford at times succeeded in out-passing their hosts. With Alan McCormack clearly determined to prove that Boro’s Grant Leadbitter was not the only influential central midfielder on view things became interesting.
Maxime Colin’s duel with Stewart Downing turned into an intriguing subplot, with the former England winger discovering he could not quite waltz past the visiting right-back on the outside. No matter; Downing’s low, viciously bent free-kick gave David Button quite a fright as it momentarily threatened to squeeze into the bottom corner.
Brentford’s goalkeeper had no answer to Stuani’s fourth goal in four games. The striker capitalised on smart approach work from Nsue and Diego Fabbrini to unleash a right-foot shot that arrived in the bottom corner via the inside of a post.
Although Nugent quickly had the ball in the net again, an offside flag ruled that effort irrelevant. Unfortunately for Karanka, Lasse Vibe’s equaliser at the outset of the second half proved absolutely legitimate. It was down to goalkeeper error, Dimitrios Konstantopoulos being wrong-footed by a deflection off Ayala, which left the ball bouncing towards him capriciously and at speed. He attempted to gather it but it swerved out of his grasp, leaving Vibe to steal in and use his right foot to level matters.
The 20,000 plus crowd were dismayed, their mood only brightening a little when Adomah clambered off the naughty step. Seizing this reprieve he swiftly made his presence felt, his right-wing cross being slammed in left-footed by the perfectly positioned Stuani from close range.
Suitably encouraged, Adomah then scored himself. An imperious right foot shot unleashed after being cued up by Nugent’s surging advance brought a huge cheer. Another followed when he immediately raced towards his manager and the pair shared a warm embrace. “It was nice,” said Karanka, “Everyone could see how good our relationship is.”
