Northampton 1

Brentford 0 (Jan 22)

BRENTFORD suffered their second loss in four days on Tuesday, going down 1-0 to Northampton Town putting a black mark on their promotion chances.

The Bees made surprise changes to the side which lost to Wigan with club captain Paul Evans, Gavin Mahon and Lloyd Owusu at first keeping the substitutes bench warm. Darren Powell made his debut as captain.

Northampton nearly broke the deadlock on 12 minutes. Jamie Forrester made a great run down the left hand side and delivered a pinpoint pass to Sam Parkin in the box, Parkin's shot, however, was palmed away by Gottskalksson to safety.

Hutchinson went into the book for his challenge on Stephen Hunt with five minutes of the half remaining but the biggest cheer was reserved for Marco Gabbiadini's accidental collision with referee Joslin, which sent the official sprawling to the floor.

In the second half Mark McCammon went close but failed to hit the target and Ijah Anderson was booked nine minutes later for a challenge on Gabbiadini.

But the two main talking points came within the last 10 minutes when Gabbiadini was sent off after 85 minutes for a blatant dive in the Brentford penalty area, his second bookable offence.

And then four minutes from time Northampton broke the deadlock.

Substitute Asamoah saw Gottskalksson hopelessly out of position and he lobbed the ball superbly into the net.

January 23, 2002 13:00