One To Watch: Daniel Bentley

Birmingham City will be in high spirits as they travel to Brentford tomorrow hoping to gain maximum points from the trip. Brentford will be in the opposite mood having lost to Blackburn Rovers last weekend despite holding a lead in the first minute. They will be looking to pick themselves up after this as they do find themselves in 14th place in the league so can do better than what they showed last week.

Despite this, I think that we are the better team. Football can never be predicted but on paper, I think that we have the capabilities within the squad to get the 3 points. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I think that our attack are capable of scoring every game. We have a variety of players who can add different skills to the attack and therefore we have become much more of an attacking threat. Due to this, I think we will really put Brentford’s back line under pressure.

Blackburn, who have been shy in front of goal recently, managed three past them so the defence is a bit shaky. Having said all this, I still think that the player who will cause us the most problems is Daniel Bentley, the goalkeeper. I saw him several times for Southend and I actually wanted him to sign for the Blues’ when Randolph departed to West Ham. I was impressed with his handling of the ball and his kicking. He seemed to be able to pick out a man with his feet even from the other side of the pitch. He has gone to Brentford and become first choice so it shows what they think of him.

I think that we will certainly test him tomorrow. We should put in a lot of crosses as he doesn’t seem the most confident despite being a tall goalkeeper and also crossing is our strength so why change? I do think that he is a great shot stopper though so we will have to be on our game to try and find the corners. He is not unbeatable by any means but he has a long reach and good reactions which make his ability to deny players from close range very good.

As a team, Brentford have the ability to score but they tend to do this on the break as a team so not one particular player is a threat up front, in my opinion. They work hard together as a team but so do Birmingham City. I can see a low scoring game but if we beat Bentley early on, their heads tend to go down and I think we can go on and dominate the game.