Bryan Mbeumo nets brace as Brentford thrash Southampton to claim first away win
Bryan Mbeumo scored twice as Brentford thumped sorry Southampton 5-0 for their first Premier League away win of the season.
Cameroon forward Mbeumo, linked with a potential January move to Arsenal, piled on the misery for rock-bottom Saints after Kevin Schade had fired the Bees ahead.
Keane Lewis-Potter and Yoane Wissa added insult to injury in stoppage time at the end of another thoroughly miserable afternoon for Southampton.
The new manager bounce they were looking for after replacing Russell Martin with Ivan Juric has turned into more of a new manager thud after a third straight defeat since the Croatian was appointed.
They remain stuck on six points from 20 matches and look not only doomed to relegation, but also in serious of danger of breaking Derby’s unwanted record of collecting only 11 points over an entire Premier League season.
Brentford had to wait just six minutes to take the lead when Mikkel Damsgaard nicked the ball away from Joe Aribo and brilliantly swerved the challenge of Lesley Ugochukwu.
The Danish midfielder then slid a superb diagonal ball through to Schade, who calmly flicked it first-time across Aaron Ramsdale and into the back of the net.
Brentford should have doubled their lead when Mbeumo raced forward and played the ball through the legs of Jan Bednarek to strike partner Wissa, but Ramsdale was out quickly to block his shot.
Moments later a cross from Mathias Jensen found Bees skipper Christian Norgaard, whose header hit the crossbar.
The closest toothless Saints came to an equaliser was a Tyler Dibling drive which crashed into the side-netting.
Early in the second half Ramsdale saved from Mads Roerslev at his near post before Taylor Harwood-Bellis somehow cleared off the goal-line from Wissa.
Brentford had the ball in the net after 50 minutes when Sepp van den Berg was left totally unmarked as he stooped to head in Mbeumo’s corner, but a VAR check spotted a push by Wissa on Bednarek.
Wissa should have put the game to bed on the hour when he was played through by Schade’s clever back-header, but in trying to lob Ramsdale he almost cleared the stand behind the goal.
Instead it was left to Mbeumo to finish Saints off, the striker playing in Wissa and making a run outside his team-mate before smashing the return ball into the roof of Ramsdale’s net.
Then, with 20 minutes left, Ugochukwu brought down Van den Berg as they challenged for Mbeumo’s cross, with the Cameroon forward tucking the penalty beyond Ramsdale’s dive.
In stoppage time Mbeumo set up Lewis-Potter to roll in the fourth, and Wissa pounced on a defensive mistake to run through and hit the fifth to deepen the gloom surrounding Saints.
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