36th minute exactly. Watch it carefully. Freeze it. Good curving ball over to Erling from, I think, Phil. Erling's pretty much on the far side of the six-yard area, no question of going for goal. When the ball gets to him, there is not one other blue shirt in the entire Brentford area. Absolutely no-one was following up. Kev (who had a great game, that's not in question) actually has his back turned and is walking away from the goal! By way of comparison — there were five Brentford players in the box, + their keeper, naturally.
Erling does the only thing he reasonably can. He heads the ball back into space in the centre of the area, on the assumption that somebody — anybody! — must surely be following up to take advantage of the chance. The ball goes dead.
Erling shrugged and looked thoroughly pissed off, and frankly, I understand him. Now it is true that he sometimes seems to go missing in games, and his touch is not always great, but the plain fact is that he's had no-one whatsoever to second him in the area, to play off his shoulder in the area, since the start of the season. In fact, since the departure of Álvarez. Even Sergio never had to play alone like that.
I think, at that point, Erling was out of the game. He's wrong of course, and should be criticised — you're paid to help your team mates right through the ninety minutes — but this has been happening quite a lot right through the season.
He is utterly isolated.
We've got to get someone up top to give him a hand. Palmer could have done that job, maybe even Delap at a lower level. If there's no-one at the club, we've got to go into the market. This window, or, at worst, in the summer. Otherwise, I genuinely think he'll be on his way.
