FA Cup / Brentford 2-1 Sunderland: Martin Allen is taking a novel approach to the interest this win is likely to generate in his Brentford team and some of the young talent it contains: with less than 48 hours until the transfer window closes, he is going into hiding.
"No one will be able to knock on my door on Monday because I'm on the Uefa Pro licence course at Warwick University and my phone will be off," he said. "It's going to be very difficult to get hold of me. I'll be in the lecture room all day Monday. On Monday night, I'm in the lecture room. On Tuesday, I'm in the lecture room."
There are others, one feels, who need a lesson in coaching more than Allen. On Saturday his team were perfectly prepared, offering a vitality and a variety that was totally foreign to their Premiership opponents. And there was individual brilliance too, in the shape of the outstanding defender Sam Sodje and the striker DJ Campbell, who scored both Brentford goals.
Campbell passed through the youth schemes of Aston Villa and QPR, the club he supports, but his bad attitude hampered his progress. "I always knew what I was capable of but it was just a case of someone giving me a chance," he said. "Obviously before I wasn't the best of people. When I was younger you could say I was a bad apple, but I have realised that people would die to be in my situation and just to be happy. Seeing the fans today, there is so much love there. I've never had that before in my life."
The manner in which Campbell scored his two goals suggested that, even if at 24 his promotion to professional football has arrived later than most, he has yet to reach his peak. For his first he controlled Jay Tabb's pass and taunted Gary Breen with the ball before disappearing into the penalty area to score. Then in the 89th minute he allowed Breen a 10-yard start but still beat him to Lloyd Owusu's flick-on before producing a fine left-foot finish, his eighth goal in six games.
Allen may have assembled his Brentford side with soccer's scraps but it was Sunderland who played as strangers. Dean Whitehead's two first-half shots, the second well saved by Stuart Nelson, represented their only chances and even a fortunate equaliser, Julio Arca's mishit cross looping into the net, could not save them. While Owusu and Campbell offered a combination of height and pace up front for the Bees, the Sunderland strike force of John Stead and Kevin Kyle, who was returning from a long-term hip injury, boasted but a single attribute: mediocrity.
"After 17 months being injured you can't just come back and make things happen the way you'd want them to," said Kyle. "It's a godawful result but it's a massive relief that I've managed to get back to playing first-team football again because last summer I thought that was it. Then five months down the line here I am playing against Brentford in the FA Cup and doing my job again - not to the standard I'd like to but it's nice to be back."- Guardian Service
