John Egan hopes to make it a home debut to remember as he prepares for Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship match at Griffin Park against Ipswich Town. The Irish-defender, who joined from Sky Bet League One side Gillingham last month, made his Brentford bow at Huddersfield Town a week ago but is now building up to his first taste of competitive action at home. The 23-year-old revealed that he will be cheered on by a lot of friends and family this weekend and he wants to send them, and the rest of The Bees fans, home happy with three points.
“We haven’t started the season how we planned to but it is a great opportunity on Saturday, in front of the home fans, to get up and running for the season,” said John, speaking to Bees Player ahead of the match. “The first home game is the one that you want to play in. You want to play in front of your own fans and I will have people from my circle there as well. It will be great for them to watch me play. My mum, my friends from Ireland, and my girlfriend will be there so it will be good for them to come to Griffin Park for a league game. Hopefully we can get the three points and make it an enjoyable day.”
Standing in Brentford’s way on Saturday are an Ipswich Town side who followed up Saturday’s impressive 4-2 win over Barnsley with a shock 1-0 defeat to Stevenage in the EFL Cup on Tuesday night. The Cork-born defender has a lot of respect for The Tractor Boys and in particular manager Mick McCarthy, who enjoyed success as the Republic of Ireland manager, but feels that if The Bees click they will be a very tough side to beat.
“We are really determined to get that first win,” said John. “We are a bunch of lads who really want to do well and every day in training people are bang on it. Once that consistently translates to the games we have got a lot of good things going for us. When we get it together and players play with each other more to see what they are good at we will be a really good team and really hard to beat. The sooner the better so hopefully we can start Saturday and drive on and get the three points. Mick McCarthy is massively respected back home. He did great things with the Irish national team. His teams are going to be tough, hardworking, and we are going to have to compete on Saturday. They have a great work ethic and try to be competitive so we will have to match that and more if we want to get the result.”
John’s arrival last month bolstered The Bees defensive options which already included Danish International Andreas Bjelland, Yoann Barbet, and Harlee Dean. Slight injuries to Andreas and Yoann have seen John and Harlee get the nod for the opening two matches but now, with the pair expected to return soon, John knows that he has to be at the top of his game to make sure he keeps hold of his starting spot.
“I really like playing with Harlee Dean,” said John. “We have had two games in a row together now and I think the more that you play with somebody then the better the partnership gets. We need to just build on that. I thought we were really solid on Tuesday night. We worked and defended well together so we are looking to build on that and take it into Saturday. Andreas Bjelland and Yoann Barbet coming back only drives standards higher. More competition is only going to want to make you do better. We have very good competition in every position and that is what you have to have if you want to be successful. You want to have people fighting for the shirt and driving each other on to become better.”