Ivan Juric apologised to Southampton supporters after his rock-bottom side allowed Brentford to secure a first away league win of the season in emphatic fashion. Added-time goals from Keane Lewis-Potter and Yoane Wissa completed the hammering and Juric said: “An extremely bad day, a really bad game. There was such a difference between the two teams and I’m disappointed with everything; the team, myself, everybody.” Kevin Schade gave Brentford a sixth-minute lead and Bryan Mbeumo’s second-half double – one a penalty – secured the points well before the late goals. Juric, who has lost all three games since succeeding Russell Martin, said: “There has just been two weeks but I expected I could do more with the team. The players know the situation is very bad. They’ve been through it before and it’s the same thing. But they have to stick together and try to work harder. “Today I was thinking about one step forward and we took three steps back. It was a really bad performance. It’s important to concentrate, to stay focus, to work to improve ourselves. “We cannot lose 5-0 at home. I feel responsible. The game, it was awful. This day cannot happen any more.” The new manager bounce has failed to materialise with Saints – stuck on six points from 20 matches – not only looking doomed to relegation, but also in serious danger of breaking Derby’s unwanted record of collecting 11 points in a Premier League season. Brentford had to wait 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 Denmark midfielder then slid a superb diagonal pass to Schade, who calmly flicked it first-time across Aaron Ramsdale and into the net. Brentford should have doubled their lead when Mbeumo raced forward and played the ball through the legs of Jan Bednarek to his strike partner Wissa, but Ramsdale was out quickly to block his shot. Moments later, a cross from Mathias Jensen found the Brentford captain, Christian Nørgaard, whose header rattled the crossbar. The closest toothless Southampton – who have scored 12 times in the league this season – came to an equaliser was a Tyler Dibling drive that 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 goalline from Wissa. Brentford had the ball in the net again after 50 minutes when Sepp van den Berg was left unmarked as he stooped to head in Mbeumo’s corner, but a video assistant referee 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 the game off, the striker playing in Wissa and making a run outside his teammate before smashing the return ball into the roof of the net. With 20 minutes left, Ugochukwu brought down Van den Berg as they challenged for Mbeumo’s cross, with the 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 Southampton. Thomas Frank’s mood was rather different. “The away win is nice,” said the Brentford manager. “But when we look at the performance, it’s one of my biggest moments with this Brentford team. “To come here, against Southampton, a team fighting to stay in the league with a new manager, is always difficult. “To win in the way we did with complete control and dominance, giving nothing away, scoring five goals, I’m very pleased and proud of that. “I spoke to the players about attitude, attitude, attitude, and to be humble, to run hard, to press hard, to defend well, to be 100% focused. That shows what culture we have at this club.”
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