Brentford finally got their first away win of the season at the 10th attempt after thrashing bottom of the table Southampton 5-0.
The Bees’ last away win in the Premier League came on May 11 when they beat Bournemouth 2-1, with two goals from Bryan Mbeum – as well as one each from Kevin Schade, Keane Lewis-Potter and Yoane Wiss – ending their long drought in style .
Southampton remain bottom of the table, 10 points from safety, as a result. They have now lost all three of Ivan Jurić’s main games, conceding eight goals and scoring only one.
Brentford – rightly so, in retrospect – sensed an opportunity and started to take control of the game from play, so it was no surprise when they were in the lead after six minutes.
Mikkel Damsgaard beat Joe Arib to the ball, nudged it past Lesley Ugochukwu and unleashed a beauty of a first-time pass by Kevin Schade to divert Aaron Ramsdale.
It seemed that others would soon follow. Wiss forced a couple of Ramsdale saves, Christian Norgaard hit the crossbar with a header and Damsgaard shot inches wide after pulling the ball away from Ugochukwu with great skill.
However, the Bees could not find a way to double their lead and Saints sent a timely reminder of how quickly the game can change just before the break when Aribo played in Tyler Dibling who shot inches wide of the post.
But the screw started to turn at the beginning of the second half. Sepp van den Berg was the second sent off after VAR spotted Wissa’s foul on Jan Bednarek, before Wissa burst into flames when Schade headed in a one-on-one header.
It was 2-0 when Bryan Mbeumo and Wissa linked up intuitively, the former hitting a break high into the roof of the net – and Mbeumo made it three when he finished from the penalty spot after Ugochukwu’s clumsy foul on Van den Berg.
There was no going back after that, but it got worse for the stricken Saints in second-half stoppage time.
Lewis-Potter capitalized on an early Harwood-Bellis slip to make it four after being picked out by Mbeumo, and Wissa added a touch of brilliance inside two minutes, coolly slotting home his 10th of the season after Yuki Sugawara headed the ball straight into his path .
The story of the match in statistics…
What’s up in the Premier League?
