Brentford 7-2 Wycombe
by Dan Nolan
at Brentford Community Stadium

AFTER sharing first-half honours with promotion contenders Brentford, Gareth Ainsworth says Wycombe’s collapse to 7-2 was a shock, not acceptable, near-embarrassing — but that the buck stops with him. 

“Today, if I’m honest, I knew it would be very tough coming to Brentford,” the Chairboys manager said after Saturday’s beating in west London. “But at half-time there was no way I saw 7-2 coming. Absolutely no way.

“I’m shocked as anyone to see those five goals in the second half. We had a couple of chances — it could have been 7-4, 7-5 — but 7-2 is not acceptable.”

The newly promoted manager, who shouldered the blame and admitted that opening up his attack had caused one of the later goals, added: “To be in the league is fantastic. Embarrassing is a hard word to use, I wouldn’t go that far because I know what we are, but it’s a really tough one. 

“It’s my biggest defeat as a manager, and it’s not a nice day.” 

Ainsworth’s disappointment was compounded by a confident first-half performance, putting his last-placed side toe-to-toe with what he branded an “automatic-promotion team.”

Ethan Pinnock half-volleyed the hosts ahead after nine minutes, but Uche Ikpeazu twisted through the Brentford defence to finesse a reply into David Raya’s bottom-right corner shortly after.

And after Ivan Toney’s shot span back off Ryan Allsop’s gloves on 41 minutes – chased in by Tarique Fosu, though the scoresheet may yet be adjusted to complete Toney’s hat-trick – Wycombe hit back two minutes later through Admiral Muskwe’s header.

But the onslaught began just after the half when Toney’s pass opened up Fosu to score across stock-still Allsop.

Toney then rolled in a goal of his own – a penalty dubiously won by Sergi Canos as he flew in front of Fred Onyedinma’s foot while the latter was clearing – before Canos, Toney and Josh Dasilva put Wycombe to the sword with three more in the last 10 minutes.

It gave them over 30 per cent of goals in the Championship that day, and from five different sources. But Brentford manager Thomas Frank was most pleased that Toney was back in business having not scored from open play since December 12.

“Before this game, if I had to pick one I wanted to score today, it was Ivan,” Frank said.

“I was never in doubt that if he didn’t score today he’d score the next game, because of the type of player [he is].

“But we needed that goal to go … because we know that’s important for a striker in keeping their confidence.”