Cardiff City FC (11th) welcome Brentford FC (5th) in the next round of EFL Championship fixtures.

Both sides are looking to put narrow midweek defeats behind them, Cardiff losing to playoff rivals Nottingham Forest and Bees missing out on any of the points on offer against a dogged wall from bottom of the division side Luton Town.

The reverse fixture saw Brentford come out 2-1 winners, withstanding a late onslaught after starting well to move into a 2 goal lead only for Cardiff to pull a goal back through a wonderful set-piece strike from Marlon Pack.

This fixture took place back in early December with both squads and players currently available to Harris and Frank looking a little different when compared to the previous matchup.

Keeping it brief this week, we’re going to focus on the two sides' last fixture and how they come into this match.

Cardiff's previous game vs Forest will not go down as one of their EFL classics. Overall, it was an evenly matched tie but at times proved a difficult watch as when two teams built to spend time without the ball coming up against one another invariably is. It was Forest who dominated the early stages and coped far better with the occasion, wide me Lolley and Ameobi proving difficult for Cardiff to control as they swapped wings and linked with Silva hovering around in the 10 positions. The Bluebirds struggled with both their running in possession and movement off the ball.

Neil Harris’ side struggled in attack, much like Brentford did when Forest came to Griffin Park. Dangerous moments tended to only occur when Forest gave the ball away. Speed of movement or incisive ball progressions were limited. Forward play came from chipped balls in the wide channels or long goalkeeper distributions.

Throw-ins from Vaulks, who has forced himself into the side ahead of Bacuna, in the final 3rd gave Forest their main challenges to deal with. Patterson’s main moment was being on the end of a Vaulks cross from the 2nd phase of the Ex-Rotherham man's throw in. 2/4 of Cardiff's shots on target came from Vauks' throws.

Cardiff are without Tomlin for the foreseeable future and Harris chose to pursue with Patterson in the starting line-up, but here, instead of playing him as an out and out forward, he was to operate in the positions Tomlin picks up. Pattersons problem, and a reason behind Cradiff’s early struggles were the positions the Scot was picking up. He wasn't dropping deep enough into the middle third offering a vertical option to Vaulks or Pack when they did finally get on the ball, instead he was finding himself beside Gratzel and doing little to pressure Watson or Yates when out of possession or influence the game in any great deal.

The shape was turned into a 4-4-2, leaving a huge space between deep lying midfielders and forward line. Harris may have been impressed with how well Watson used the ball dropping between his centre backs or further forward as the midfield pivot.

Cardiff must do better with their dead ball situations vs Brentford, most of which against Forest turned into wasted situations, rarely testing the back line to any great effect.

Danny Ward has caused Brentford issues in the past and brought speed of movement, directness and purpose when introduced. Harris appears to prefer his energy impacting games from the bench when the match is stretched and spaces appear.

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With Brentford, it is difficult assess how much the previous batch of fixtures will impact the away trip to Cardiff, both in terms of team shape and line-up.

There has been a recent return of the 3-4-3 formation that became a problem in itself during the early parts of the season. Brentford became predictable during build up and struggled to move the opposition out of disciplined defensive shapes. A process that was aimed at strengthening the side in defensive areas ended up being prohibitive at the opposite end of the pitch.

Brentford switch in formation vs Blackburn Rovers

It’s return on the hour when 2 nil down against Blackburn was a tactical throwback to years gone by to chase games that looked to be slipping away, whereas in this instance, an injury to Jeanvier made the head coaches mind up, with Frank opting to drop Nørgaard into the back 3 moving Dalsgaard and Pinnock either side. The result was the desired effect, attacking impetus and good possession in the wide areas high up the pitch.

What we saw for the final half hour was Mads Roerslev moving into the side and providing a progressive outlet and dominant point of focus from the right hand side.

Roerslev has created 5 chances since the sub against Rovers and looks to be sure to keep his position if Thomas Frank continues with the 3-4-3 system with Dalsgaard continuing at right centre back.

We’d assume a return to 4-3-3 would be ultimately reliant on a return to fitness of Pontus Jansson or Jeanvier, without either or both of these things, the 3-4-3 shape appears more likely due to the inexperience of backup centre backs.

The remainder of the side depends on injuries and whether they have had a chance to heal and with this in mind, we should see Shandon Baptiste and Josh Dasilva continue as the two central box-to-box midfielders.

With the Bees last tasting victory vs Boro, 5 games ago, all numbers of narratives have been constructed around why the squad are coming up short at the business end of the season.

Inexperienced young players, tiredness, trying to walk the ball into the net all feature in a long list of theories as to why this team can no longer win matches.

Josh Dasilva in central midfield has also been labelled as struggling.

We’re not sure about this at all. The young midfielder was almost flawless in possession against Luton, misplacing only 3 passes across the 90 minutes. Against Blackburn, he gave the ball away a miserly 6 times in the whole game. He’s still producing shots managing 2 vs Luton and 3 vs Blackburn, and created 6 chances across the last two games, outside of this put the ball into dangerous central areas in the box that needed vital blocks or clearances.

Dasilva is part of a team that are pressing extremely well, forcing the opposition into long balls forward or, as shown in the graphs below, performing defensive actions after a low number of opposition passes. The league average is around 10.

Brentford pressing vs Luton

Brentford Pressing vs Blackburn

With 1000s of events occurring during a football match, it’s easy to focus on those that negatively affect you. Goals conceded or a misplaced pass that leads to an opposition attack, it’s how we’re all hardwired, to gloss over what goes well and focus on what disappoints us, or takes us away from our most hoped for outcome.

This is a huge flaw in how we relay what we’ve seen when watching football.

It's an easy reflex position, the assessment that the Brentford FC playoff wheels are starting to fall off. Draws followed by a defeat don’t match up with earlier season form. Instead, Brentford should be viewed as a team that are playing well, dominating and controlling matches. There doesn’t have to be a huge number of things wrong because results have not gone the way they were expected.

If Brentford can get through the trip to Wales with some of the set-piece defending that has gotten them this far, there should be a reward on offer for their usual quality in attacking play.