Brentford news: Have teams cracked the Gtech puzzle?

There were two main topics to reflect on as we walked away from the Gtech on Saturday after yet another home defeat.

Brentford had played reasonably well against Aston Villa, especially in the second half, but once again had come up just short.

Apart from not doing well against top-half sides this season, as I have discussed here before, it seems that all visiting teams in recent games seem to have worked out how to play against us.

Spurs changed their tactics at the start of February and came away with a 2-0 win, and then both Everton and Villa relied on massed defence and playing on the counter-attack to hurt us.

Despite dominating possession in each match, we failed to break down either opponent despite putting in plenty of crosses which were simply headed away.

The other factor is our continuing injury crisis, which leaves us short of experience on the bench every week.

Thomas Frank has hardly any options to change a match when we are either holding on to a lead or chasing the game.

Just when we had positive news on Friday about a whole crop of injured players, including record signing Igor Thiago, Aaron Hickey and Rico Henry, two more names were missing from the matchday squad when we checked our phones for the team news on Saturday.

Fabio Carvalho, a regular substitute this season, has dislocated his shoulder and had surgery, while January loan signing Michael Kayode was also out with a minor injury.

It leaves us wondering if we are we ever going to have a full-strength squad again.

Find more from Ian Westbrook at Beesotted podcast