Unbeaten in four starts since Neil Harris took over as their manager, Cardiff got down to business with the air of a team singularly unimpressed by Brentford’s last Griffin Park outing, when Luton were despatched 7-0 with almost casual ease.
One point ahead and having lost two games fewer than the hosts, they appeared determined to put the wind up their fellow contenders for, at very least, a play-off place come season’s end.
The Bees responded at crackerjack pace from the off, helping to create a chill winter scenario where no holds would be barred, no quarter given. This was to be an uncompromising encounter; one that obviously concentrated the mind of Brentford’s head coach Thomas Frank to such an extent that in his programme notes he described it as ‘our last home game before 25 December’. So much for the impending visit of Fulham, which has all the makings of a similarly ferocious meeting.
Matthias Jensen set the tone with a shot that, although aimed almost directly at him, surprised visiting keeper Neil Etheridge by its velocity so much that he nearly dropped it. Cardiff’s Lee Tomlin replied with one that David Raya could only watch as it was deflected just past the post.
Slowly the Bees began to dominate and when after 25 minutes twinkle-toed Said Benrahma set up Bryan Mbeumo to plunder his sixth goal of the season, the Ealing Road choir burst into full throat mode. Was this to be another Luton?
No, it most certainly wasn’t: Cardiff shrugged off the deficit as if just a minor irritation and despite a Benrahma driving run and shot which required a full-stretch dive for Etheridge to keep it out, the visitors had the better of the remainder of the half.
That supremacy didn’t last long – just a minute into the second period, in fact. Mbeumo supplied the cross that gave Ollie Watkins a free header, despatched beyond Etheridge’s reach with the precision that is becoming an Ollie speciality. Cardiff’s irritation now became almost visible, with the pressure on Raya’s goal mounting by the minute until a perfectly executed sucker punch put the visitors very much back in the game.
Even with skipper Pontus Jansson and the fearless Henrik Dalsgaard back from the injury and illness that kept them out of the side beaten by Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, the defence could do nothing as Tomlin hit a free kick square across the pitch for a lurking Marlon Pack to unleash a drive that possibly approached sound-barrier speed as it thundered past Raya.
Cue another and final period of Cardiff pressure, stretching the home defence like an elastic band. The tension palpably affected not only the players but, seemingly, referee John Brooks, whose awarding of a chain of free kicks in favour of the visitors provoked the ire of the Ealing Road end.
Crowd power, as most officials have found out, is not a pretty experience, something Cardiff’s Malaysian-Chinese owner Vincent Tan also discovered back in Wales when he changed the colour of his team’s strip from historic blue to glaring red, presumably not caring that the nickname Redbirds has no ring to it at all.
Mr Tan, who has eleven children and now owns The Sun newspaper in Malaysia as well as more clubs across football’s international landscape than most of us have pairs of shoes, eventually capitulated and the Bluebirds could fly once more. And fly they did on Tuesday, battering a Brentford rearguard that deserve a medal for resilience in the face of wave after wave of hostility, even if Watkins did manage to break away and score a nicely finished but clearly offside second.
The Bluebirds gave everything they could, I said to my mate Charlie, but now we’re seventh and they’re ninth and we’re ahead by three points and a goal difference wider than the Rhondda Valley. What can they say to Mr Tan about that?
‘Cheer up me old China,’ suggested Charlie.
Brentford: Raya, Dalsgaard, Jansson, Pinnock, Henry, Jensen. Norgaard (sub Mokotjo) Dasilva, Mbeumo (Jeanvier), Watkins, Benrahma.
Cardiff City: Etheridge, Peltier, Flint, Nelson, Bennett, Bacuna, Pack, Mendez-Laing (Madine),Tomlin, Hoilett (Murphy), Ward (Patterson).