House of pain

Photo: Tom Pickles

Pawel Abbott urges his team on — to no avail

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Athletic 2, Brentford 3

2,833 FANS WITNESS LATICS’ EIGHTH HOME DEFEAT OF THE SEASON

ANOTHER day, another desperately disappointing result at Boundary Park.

The misery seems to be never ending for the long-suffering Athletic fans who turned up to witness an eighth home defeat of the season

Two goals from Pawel Abbott — the one Athletic player who seems capable of finding the net, now on 13 for the season — arrived either side of three from the visitors.

Two of those came from Charlie MacDonald, who benefited from a pair of real gut-wrenching defensive howlers.

The latter of those even came from captain Sean Gregan, who has been so immense all year. When even the sturdiest of defensive rocks shows signs of being unsteady, you know you are in trouble.

The home fans among the horribly low crowd of 2,833 must feel like they are immersed in particularly grim Ken Loach drama, longing for some sort of a happy ending.

The attendance sticks out as a sad symbol of the apathy that this terrible season has wrought.

There were mitigating factors: the weather stunk, United were on the telly and — well, in truth, Athletic have done little to inspire people to turn up to a dilapidated three-sided ground in terms of providing on-field entertainment.

At present, optimism is in severely short supply.

But overall, while the result was dire, the performance at least wasn’t all bad.

Kirk Millar, the 17-year-old Northern Irish winger, made his debut on the right wing and after going close to scoring in the first minute, provided some zip and much-needed vigour to Dave Penney’s side who made a bright start to the game.

The first-year scholar stung the palms of Brentford goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny after taking a cross-field pass on his chest and, after Kieran Lee and Kelvin Lomax switched berths in a bid to deal with dangerous winger Myles Weston, Lomax almost caused Leon Legge to slice a skimming cross into his own net.

Then came the goal. Dale Stephens dinked in a cross, Abbott chested down and somehow kept his balance to spin and fire a brilliant shot past the left hand of Szczesny.

So often forced to come from behind, Athletic now had the chance to push on and claim another goal to reinforce their lead.

But this didn’t happen and instead, Brentford got back into the game.

A mis-kick when clearing from Lomax eight minutes after the opening goal gave possession away to former Athletic loan man Lewis Grabban.

Tricking his way past Lomax on the home side’s left wing, his whipped cross was superbly volleyed home by MacDonald over his left shoulder from the centre of the area.

So much for the importance of the opening strike.

And Brentford went close to gaining the lead with an almost identical move down the opposite flank, Gregan deflected Marcus Bean’s volley inches wide before Legge powered a header just off target from the resulting corner.

Brentford boss Andy Scott sensed his side were in the ascendancy and switched to 4-4-2 for the second half, Ben Strevens coming on for Bean to go alongside MacDonald up front.

Athletic didn’t start badly at all after the break, Abbott hammering a low shot that Szczesny did well to hold on to before Lewis Guy missed a golden chance to retake the lead.

Racing on to a clever lobbed ball over the top from Abbott, Guy found himself bearing down on goal inside the penalty area, but his powerful shot to the far corner was well stopped by the outstretched foot of Brentford’s on-loan Arsenal ’keeper.

Such are the thin dividing lines between success and failure — and Scott’s men made Athletic pay with a goal against the run of play after 64 minutes.

David Hunt curled in the latest of his dangerous set-pieces to the far post and centre-back Pim Balkestein’s header squirmed in under the despairing grasp of Darryl Flahavan.

The real killer blow came five minutes later. MacDonald nipped in behind Gregan as he slipped on the left and, after cutting inside past Reuben Hazell, hit a low left-foot shot into the far corner.

Athletic brought on Tom Eaves and threw caution to the wind to try to get back into the game.

Chris Taylor began to find some form, and the winger forced a fingertip save from Szczesny before substitute Danny Whitaker stabbed a sharp half-chance over the bar.

Taylor then cut inside and hit a right-foot shot from the edge of the area which hit a post, bouncing out for Abbott to guide home his second of the game eight minutes from the end.

Eaves had a couple of headed chances in the final few minutes as the home side pumped crosses into the box, but it wasn’t enough to provide any joy for an Athletic side now deep in the relegation mire.

Latics’ next game: April 3, Gillingham (H), Coca-Cola League One