GLEN THOMAS must have walked under a ladder and killed a black cat on his way to Griffin Park.

How else do you explain two nightmare mistakes inside the opening 20 minutes which presented Brentford with the points?

There is no doubting Thomas in terms of commitment and, to his credit, he made no attempt to shirk an interview afterwards or hide from his responsibilities.

But they were the sort of blunders which leave managers scratching their heads helplessly.

Thomas, confused by a breakdown in communication, was caught in two minds as he spooned a harmless Andy Scott cross into his own net.

Worse followed 11 minutes later as Scott made the most of a woefully short backpass.

It reminded me of two howlers by George Parris, a player of similar experience, across the other side of London at Leyton Orient in the early days of Steve Gritt's reign.

Gritt's horrified successor Brian Horton must be wondering what on earth he can do to put things right.

All five League goals conceded by Albion can be attributed to awful defending, whether individually or collectively. Then, of course, there was Peter Smith's costly slip which ensured an early exit from the Worthington Cup.

Until the unforced errors are eliminated they will continue to serve up depressing defeats for the long-suffering supporters.

What made this latest setback even harder to stomach was that the accident-prone Seagulls actually started the match very brightly.

Strange as it seems, they were by far the better side in the first half, when Mark Walton's only task was to pick the ball out of his net.

The Bees were not exactly buzzing, but those goals took the sting out of Albion. Brentford began to exploit the holes in the second half once Horton had boldly abandoned the sweeper system and they might have won by twice as many.

Leaking ludicrous goals at one end and having no-one capable of putting the ball away regularly at the other already looks alarmingly like a recipe for another relegation battle.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.