Every year the Championship throws up at least one 'surprise package': surprising to everyone except that team's fanbase, of course, who have seen a rather more gradual but deliberate improvement, usually involving an intelligent manager who plays a fairly progressive style and builds a squad comprising a low-cost group of solid senior pros, assorted lower-league gems and a few young #decent PL loanees. With Bournemouth having splashed the cash to ensure their lofty league position, this year it's Brentford's turn to be patronised as coming out of nowhere, despite the fact that if you had seen them at any point over the past couple of seasons, you would have thought to yourself, Why, that looks like the sort of team that would have a right old pop at the Championship, if they could only claw themselves out of that dreadful league of cloggers, half-wits and journeymen. Lo and, indeed, behold. (See also: Sheffield United.) Lungs full of new-division smell, they settled quickly. Of course, by about Christmas, this successful start to life really starts to wind up fans of supposed bigger clubs like Leeds (lol), Bolton (loller) and Wigan (lollest), who see Brentford as taking up a valuable league position that their team somehow deserves, as if there is some sort of conspiracy to keep Brentford there. Yet, supposedly against all odds, Brentford remain in the top six, not just holding on but dishing out some serious blows along the way. With 17 games to go, and an increasingly large gap developing between 8th and the rest of the division, few would bet against them sticking around and making the playoffs. Perhaps this won't be the last time we play them this season. Them Name: Brentford Nickname: The Bees Founded: 10 October 1889, making them very slightly younger than Nintendo Ground (capacity): Griffin Park (12,763) Manager: Mark Warburton who was once a trader don't you know. Forums/websites: Griffin Park Grapevine (you need to register to read, so I am unsure how many times we have been referred to as Udinese B), Beesotted Rivals: The West London Four-way] and, to a lesser extent, Brighton and maybe even us. As an aside, we at the Aprocrita Rivalry Society remain committed to the formalisation of a healthy mutual dislike between Barnet, Brentford and Watford. (Wasps' interest in joining has been noted but not approved.) In my current Football Manager save it's 2028 and Brentford are perennial Champions League contenders. Scott Sellars is currently England manager though, so it may not be a reliable indication of future performance. Previously Cast your mind back to late September when 12th-placed Brentford came to the Vic. It seems a lifetime ago: McKinlay was in charge, Ighalo was a bit of a ropey signing, Murray was in the squad, Fabbrini was on the pitch. In hindsight, what we saw then must have been Ighalo playing a deliberately scuffed penalty one-two off the Brentford keeper before clamly slotting into the empty net, and Vydra using up several goals' worth of fun in one thunderous half-volley. It's the only logical explanation for their extreme divergence in form since then. Head to head We've played Brentford 70 times: 25 wins 25 draws 20 defeats We haven't lost in the last 15 meetings. Admittedly, this includes a long spell after the late '90s when we didn't play each other, so run that takes us all the way back to '77, when we lost to them twice in the space of a couple of weeks. Played for both Lots, especially in the last 5 or 6 years: Richard Lee (who is retiring at the end of the season), Jack Bonham (who signed a new contract last month), Ian Bolton, Harry Forrester, Lee Hodson, Marcus Gayle, Tommy Smith, Steve Kabba, Adam Thompson, Piero Mingoia (although he didn't actually play during his loan spell at Griffin Park), Toumani Diagouraga, Jordan Parkes, Keith Cassels, Steve Sherwood, Keith Pritchett, Rob Kiernan, Scott Fizgerald, Gavin Mahon, Keith Millen, Martin Taylor, Richard Poole, Micky Block, Barry Ashby, Johnny Paton, Does Anyone Even Read This, Your Mum, Dale Bennett, Wilf Rostron, Billy Lane, Lionel Ainsworth, Steve Butler Current form Our recent form (as a GIF): 07/02/15 (h) Blackburn, W 1-0 30/01/15 (a) Bournemouth, L 0-1 24/01/15 (h) Blackpool, W 7-2 17/01/15 (h) Charlton, W 5-0 10/01/15 (a) Huddersfield, L 1-3 Brentford's recent form (as a GIF): 07/02/15 (a) Leeds, W 1-0 31/01/15 (h) Middlesbrough, L 0-1 24/01/15 (a) Norwich, W 2-1 17/01/15 (a) Brighton, W 1-0 10/01/15 (h) Rotherham, W 1-0 We haven't drawn for 17 games. They haven't drawn for 18 games. Brentford aren't exactly blessed with proven strikers. Summer signing Scott Hogan lasted 15 minutes of his league debut before suffering an ACL injury, so hopes rest with former Luton player Andre Gray, who leads the scoring charts with 10 in the league and 1 in the league cup. Team and score predictions Ighalo seemed to tweak a hamstring towards the end of the Blackburn game. Against a weaker team, or if we were at home, maybe Joka would swap things around to a back four, probably by leaving out Hoban. Instead, I think we'll see Iggy and Watson step aside for Vydra and Abdi, and we might see T*zsér come back in, too. Brentford (4-2-3-1): Button; Odubajo, Dean, Tarkowski, Bidwell; Diagouraga, Douglas; Jota, Pritchard, Dallas; Gray Watford (3-5-2): Gomes; Cathcart, Angella, Hoban; Layun, T*zsér, Abdi, Munari, Anya; Deeney, Vydra FT: 1-1. What could possibly happen other than a draw. Layun summons the power of a million Twitter followers to rescue a late point after Hoban cements his position as boo-boy with a 40-yard own-goal.
Is this a six pointer ? http://www.griffinpark.org/forums/ We have to match them in midfield and be aware of their quick triangles and passing. If we can and our midfield can come out on top we have enough firepower to send a couple past Button.
Brentford deserve huge praise for their season. Bournemouth get most of the headlines and the tag of 'most surprising club on the verge of the PL' but to me that belongs to Brentford. They remind me of us in 1999..everybody thinking we'll drop out the running eventually but somehow never doing so. Very nervous about this match. I sense Warburton still feels he owes us one. And there's our record of not beating a team in the top 6 at the time of playing them. Plus our season under Joka has been full of a win to get our hopes up followed by a defeat to send us crashing back down to earth again. A win would be probably our best result of the season. A draw wouldn't be the end of the world. But I don't think many of us would be surprised if we suffered a narrow loss, maybe a red card too.
PS Smudger, not that it matters a jot, but that wasn't a typo. The ZZZZs were intentional. If I hear one more story about Warburton's trading job I will hurt someone. He's been in football for the vast majority of his adult life. It's not as if he walked out of JP Morgan one day and thought, 'I quite fancy a bit of this soccer lark instead'.
Massive game .... With the commendable exception of beating (a then faltering) Derby, Brentford haven't done well against the top six so far, having lost against all of them. We really have to go for it.
Hey, leave my mum out of this.. This all depends, as usual, on which WFC turns up on a cold Tuesday night. Personally, I think the anger of the Bournemouth fiasco didn't show against Blackhead, but it will against the Bees. 1-2 Horns (but a bit nervous of Warburton, he's nobody's fool) Good write up cb, btw, and yes we read it!
It really is good to see we now have some accuracy being delivered to this forum. An Apocritan rivalry is so much more sharply defined than the hopelessly vague Hymenopteran derby referred to earlier in the season. Ha! Actually both previews were excellent.
Bretford fan posted this elsewhere Not too confident about the ref! Game is ruined before it's started we have Keith Stroud as ref. In the 9 games he's officiated us in. He's given 10 penalties 4 sending's off 35 yellow cards
How many coldbrain previewed games have we won this season? I want to know if 'form as a GIF' makes a difference.
Memories of a Griffin Park: My first midweek away game The teams ran out to the theme from 'Top of the Form' and we lost 3-0 - Was it Gordon Sweetzer who got a couple? Next visit was much more fun as went top of Div 4 with a 3-0 win
When I read your previews, Coldbrain, I imagine you look like this: When the reality, I suspect, is more like this: [/IMG]
PS Sorry for the rather large image of Rob Lowe on a football forum. Not quite got the hang of this importing pictures malarkey (Oh, & I'd have the Leeds/Bolton/Wigan lols in reverse order but I'll forgive this one indiscretion)
FIFA Predicts... Brentford 0 - 1 Watford 84' - Tozser - Cuts inside from the right and slots the ball into the bottom left corner Watford substitutions: 45' - Munari off/Watson on Man of the match: Gabriele Angella Odds: Tozser FGS and 0-1 @70/1 --------------------------------- P30 W19 D5 L6 Pts62 GD19 We would be 1st in the table Top scorers: Deeney (8) Vydra (7) Ighalo (5) Most assists: Abdi (6) Tozser (6) Ighalo (4)
my Fifa skills are sub-optimal, but rarely wrong. Last 4 games correctly predicted over an average of 5 games on semi-pro. Win to the Horns...
I apologise because I am travelling this week and might not have time to source and post the view from the dressing room. I will try and get some insight tomorrow, but the players will be focussed on the game so might not be too forthcoming with their usual level of philosophy, blended with tactics and desire.
i managed a 4-0 win (on semi-pro), but average was a 1 goal victory over 5 games (edited to add, median, not mean)
Should be a good game but I cant help but think these are the games that we fail to turn up. We need to be up for it from the start and the midfield battle will be so important. As a side note a Brentford fan has told me that a few of them got jumped on after the game at the Vic and could be looking for retribution just to give those going a heads up.
We really need something from this game, and a win will go a long way towards retaining that push for automatics. Three points would be beneficial for our momentum and our progress throughout the season. If we want to go up, we will need as many points as possible. In all honesty, I would probably take a draw now. Whilst not the best outcome, it certainly isn't the worst, and we would live to fight another day (albeit probably as play off candidates). If we play as we did against Blackburn, we will be punished. And we must try and avoid a loss at all costs. If results go against us and we lose, we could be two points off eighth, and looking down will probably be more central to our season than looking up. That would certainly not make me a happy man. So a win please Watford.... or maybe a draw. DO NOT LOSE. Easy. We have had a few big games, but after the disappointment against Bournemouth and the crap we produced against Blackburn, this is the first massive one.
From the dressing room: the players are pumped up for this massive Derby match between two great London Clubs. Brentford is a great and powerful team so to beat them will be a very challenge (sic). Against Rovers we couldnt find our rhythm, but we fought to win the game, so we need to do the same against the Bees, but hopefully we can play a football that will entertain our beloved supporters and reward them for their magnificent support which they bestowed on us throughout the black burn game. We really felt like our supporters were giving us their love and we want to repay them with a great result as they are the best fans in the world. Never fear, for this game you will see the true Watford performance.
If I made it up it would be spelt correctly. I am just the medium through which the players speak. I am not their editor.
Brentford will be up for this with the giant killing and the magic of the cup but we need to show them as much respect as any other team. This should be a routine win and in the hat for the next round. WEMBERLEEE WEMBERLEEE
