Predictable

Gah, gah and double gah. West London’s most victory-shy soccer combo conspired to slot another page tabbed “defeat” into their Big Book of Important Matches as Nicky Forster took a great big metaphorical step away from the full-time manager’s job.

While the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final is about the least important match a team plays – most fans only care about reaching the final in the first place – a dire performance bodes ill for Nicky Forster with an end of season job contest gradually hoving into view.

A strange team selection saw Simon Moore picked ahead of Trevor Carson, who had already clearly been judged to be a better keeper, the dire Adam Reed chosen above an obviously motivated Marcus Bean and the ineffective Alexander-Schlupp combo picked in attack; the former the worst target man since Callum Willock and the latter having about one touch and shot in the entire game. A stranger bench saw the sentimental use of Kevin O’Connor as a late sub when chasing the game with 10 men.

We won’t bore you with match reviews, which can be found on better websites, but suffice to say we believe Messrs Saunders and Weston should have much to think about this evening. For Brentford thoughts now turn to the summer and the next managerial appointment and transfer window. It is clear that Forster has been hampered by the appallingly wasteful transfer activity of Andy Scott, yet the new manager will have to work with most of the same players since none of them looks like attracting interest from another club and many are attached to eye watering contracts.

Forster’s team selection, the no-show in the first half and the stunning resignation to defeat in the last 10 minutes at Wembley – even before Diagouraga’s idiotic sending off – suggest he isn’t the answer. Between now and June Brentford need to figure out who is and how to deal once again with a squad held back by a number of poor players on long contracts.

For all that, congratulations to Carlisle on their win, well deserved on the day.

On feeling like a fraud

Ah Wembley, and the magical appearance of the 25,000 Brentford fans last seen when casting around for a business plan to build Lionel Road.

As a website with it’s fair share of away trips to the Hartlepools, Yeovils and Rotherhams of this world, a website that kept going as attendances plummeted as the ends of Downes, Rosenior, Fitzgerald and Butcher loomed, and a website that has been frozen solid watching defeats at Peterborough more times than it cares to mention, it’s odd to feel like a complete fraud approaching our most exciting game since Swansea at home… er… six years ago?

Like, we suspect, many of the 25,000 some of Beesy have fallen out of regular attendance this season – in the writer’s case the tail-end Andy Scott dross, family commitments and newly extended travel times have seen to that. So this writer heads to what may well be an exciting game at the new Wembley feeling very slightly like a fraud.

There are two options here: either ignore it and resume the usual Ealing drinking expedition, or embrace it and rock up in a Barbour jacket with a picnic hamper, rattle and a copy of the Sunday Times. Perhaps the time has come to point at the pitch and ask which one is Owusu.

Johnstone’s Paint Trophy… a potted history

The Johnstone’s Paint Trophy has a long and mostly illustrious history. Starting in 1907 it originally started as a Fencing competition for Victorian Ophans from all over England. The structure of the tournament was set early… orphans, being notoriously short of money and therefore unable travel even on the pre-Beeching Railway system, were grouped into regional and area rounds. The final saw north meeting south champion orphans in a field just outside Coventry.

Unfortunately this didn’t take off, mostly in part to the Victorian period ending in 1901. Secondly the public’s tolerance of orphans stabbing each other with swords was woefully overestimated even in the cruel, cruel past.

However unperturbed from these tentative steps the Johnstones Paint Trophy has run the full gamut of sports starting with Stoat Chasing (1909-27); Log Rolling (1928-39); Rugby League (1945-1969) and latterly Las Vegas Foxy Boxing (1970-2005).

It wasn’t until 2007 and the death of the UK’s van manufacturing industry that the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy found a permanent home in the heart of the lower league football calendar by taking over the LDV Trophy nee Auto Windscreen Trophy nee Freight Rover Trophy.

Here is an array of paint stats:
• The Johnstone’s Paint Trophy itself is known as the Gilded Paint Can. It is, well… a gilded paint can with diamond studded handle. Jimmy-ing open the top with a screwdriver will release paint in the winning teams colours. How does it know who will win? It is the mystery of the [gilded] can.
• Johnstone’s have been providing excellence in paint from 1890. Prior to this the company was content with being slightly above average in paint.
• In keeping with its Victorian origins the only colour available for its first 50 years was black. This changed in 1932 with the introduction of “White”.
• Johnstone’s Paint sell 15,000 different colours of paint. At least one member of Beesy has a background in art and frankly doubts there are that many colours in the world.
• The first Johnstone’s Paint Trophy was won by Doncaster.
• Carlisle is making their second visit in two years. Their lost to Southampton last year.
• According to the official Johnstone’s Paint Trophy website “The 2010 Football League Supporters’ Survey states that Johnstone’s Paint is only second to Coca-Cola in brand awareness”.

Ladies and gentlemen… The Johnstone’s Paint Trophy!

MIBBJPT”S” On Dress Rehearsals – When Brentford met Carlisle… and won

Beesy took part in a dress rehearsal once. It was at school and cutting a very long story short a career on stage a screen was cruelly cut short by forgotten lines, a rogue piece of scenery and mild concussion.
In short dress rehearsal are shit and destroyers of dreams.

In fact if this drawn out analogy is to be repeated fully at Wembley Carlisle won’t turn up and will only be seen about a week later with a bandage around their collective heads. Crying.
But let’s start at the beginning… Griffin Park at night, underpowered floodlights and people in suits trying to stomach eating a burger/ pie/ yorkie/ any combination of the three.

Three line up changes saw Simon Moore come in for the injured Richard Lee; Pim Balkenstein for the sick Karleigh Osborne and Jeffrey Schlupp for the a bit rubbish Lewis Grabban.
Beesy last proper look at Brentford was the Peterborough debacle (and it was a debacle regardless of how you think the second half went). How would Brentford play under Forster… well it certainly is a new Brentford. One where the ball gets knocked about a bit, not always in that familiar uncontrolled way, and the shape looks a little better (i.e. they try and stay in shape).

It doesn’t always work, at times Reid was guilty of coming inside too much leaving an excellent Neilson an entire flank to patrol and Alexander and Schlupp probably need more time together to form a partnership. Or Alexander needs dropping. He’s a terrible terrible target man.

But lordy clearly the most impressive change in the post Scott era is the emergence of Marcus Bean in an advanced role. This automatically gave the team a better shape than under Scott, with Dave playing the deeper midfield role and Bean able to support both Schlupp and Alexander.

All this together meant Brentford probably shaded the opening without creating too much. Jeffrey Schlupp made a decent run before toe poking at the keeper being probably the best chance. With Bean having a header cleared off the line and a goalkeeping misjudgement on a Weston free kick being the only other notable moments.
Carlisle did come into the game as the half drew on mainly thanks to closing down the play much faster but also in no small part due to Pim Balkenstein and his increasingly laboured defensive efforts.

In fact the defence was shaky all night. From Moore taking too long to clear the ball and having his kick charged down (or up and over in reality), to Woodman’s clearance off the line (from a decent Moore save, to Moore rushing out to smother a Carlisle through ball. The defence suffered from uncertainty and panic.

This featured more heavily in the second half when Carlisle attacked with more purpose. They are a relatively tidy team going forward and should have scored relatively early on. Woodman had a half he would probably want to forget and some terrible shooting and desperate blocking saw Carlisle waste 3/4 good chances.

And in many ways they did look more likely to score. Particularly when Neilson had to be taken off to be replaced by the competent if unexciting right backery of Kevin O’Connor and even worse Miles Weston replaced by Sam Wood.

Naturally this ruled out a goal from the flanks. Moderately against the run of play a big punt from Moore was flicked on by Alexander. This in itself probably stunned the Carlisle defence as he didn’t look like winning anything in the air all night (let’s be honest he’s rubbish) and in the confusion Jeffrey Schlupp atoned for his terrible miss against Leyton Orient by smashing the ball past the Carlisle keeper.

Ok, it was a bit lucky in terms of the ball ricocheted into his path during the flick on confusion but it was an emphatic finish.

And it got better. Firstly Dave almost scored the most unlikely goal of the season when he laboured around numerous defenders before shooting wide.

Secondly Carlisle failed to clear a free kick put into the box despite various attempts the ball eventually falling to Jeffrey Schlupp on the edge of the area who smashed it in.

Strangely Carlisle gave up the ghost after this and Brentford looked to be coasting to a simple win. Defensive shenanigans aside and a terrible mix up that almost saw Moore sent off with all the subs used (Legge was eventually penalised for an earlier foul) and Michalik driving the resulting free kick past Moore Carlisle seemed reluctant to press too much.

So a psychological edge to Brentford? Probably not. It was a better match to win than lose but Carlisle had enough opportunities to interest them next Sunday.

But Brentford are playing well and they are suddenly fun to watch again…

Moore – Not a great deal to do thanks to poor shooting. Needs to work on decision making but… he’s young 6
Neilson (sub O’Connor 65 mins) – A proper Right Back. Looked good up until injury 7
Legge – The more solid of the centre backs. 7
Balkestein – Hmmmm… Let’s hope Karleigh is stocking up on Antibiotics. 5
Woodman – Remember OUT not UP. Better than Balkenstein 6
Reed (sub Byrne 61 mins) – Good. Probably a central midfielder mind 7
Bean – Looks a different player under Forster 8
Dave – Solid 7
Weston (sub Wood 74 mins) – Linked up well with Schlupp if a little ineffective at times 6
Alexander – Can’t jump and doesn’t win headers. Not a Beesy favourite 6
Schlupp – Yay Jeffrey Schlupp. A more good Ricky Shakes. Put the ball into space on the big Wembley pitch and let him run run run 8

Make it Beesy’s Big Johnstone’s Paint Trophy “Special” (MIBBJPT”S”)

Hello.

You may remember this website from such seasons as the turbulent 2003/04 season (the demise of Downes) and the exciting but disappointing years 2004-06.

Now there has been false dawns since then. Scroll down and you will most likely the remnants of one. However and strictly for a one week only thing Beesy is back.

Why? Well, Beesy LOVES the Painted Vans Trophy. It was always our favourite tournament (in the absence of the Anglo-Italian cup) mainly thanks to its excellent name and ever changing structure (South Eastern group stage? Really?). It is a somewhat bitter irony that the one year Brentford have done well in it is the year we’ve showed general indifference.

That said we were one (two) few to be bored rigid at Stevenage. Stevenage is a terrible terrible place.

Anyway here’s a list of things we’ve been doing instead of writing about Brentford:

1. Manly things like hunting and drinking and shit.
2. Coming second on the pro-celebrity hotrod circuit. We’ll beat you next year Chico
3. Living in the midlands (if you can call living in the midlands living)
4. Designing a new style hat
5. Learning to cry.

Walsall Mk 1: 1-1

With apologies for a lot of downtime thanks to our blogging software, we resume with the Walsall draw, a Jekyll and Hyde affair if ever we saw one.

During the first half Brentford were excellent, Myles Weston making us look quite the fool with a scintillating and ambitious performance. Half time merited more than a one goal lead.

Once he went off injured Brentford laboured and the ball kept bouncing back (past our non-existent midfield), leaving an equaliser tediously inevitable.

And that’s all we can be bothered to say at this stage.

A line has been crossed

Wally Downes. Leroy Rosenior. Scott Fitzgerald. Is this really where we want to be?

These are the three that have provoked us to use the “staying up” tagline before now, as opposed to the – unexpected – “going up” Martin Allen sired, or the “finishing exactly midtable” cop-out we opted for this year while we tried to figure out who Myles Weston and Cleveland Taylor were, or whether Lewis Price was that good Derby keeper who had been unlucky (we were thinking of Stephen Bywater).

Hmm. We’ve seen enough now to tell us we aren’t pushing for promotion, and will be lucky to finish midtable. Andy Scott has placed himself in danger of getting – whether deserved or not – the Downes treatment (he should be very grateful for the nocturnal allegations emenating from Gloucestershire). This summer’s signings have by and large been poor. As the other correspondent on this website wrote very early in the season, we’re the only club in Europe with three fit goalkeepers and a goalkeeping crisis.

Foster is probably cheaper than John Halls, but his better work ethic doesn’t compensate for not being as good. Saunders is functional. Weston and Taylor are the two most expensive players Brentford have acquired in many many years, and are both utterly dreadful. Carl Cort has done very well and looks to be a good signing. Steve Kabba is on a two year contract and can’t get near the team. He could become a Brooker of a signing. Strevens has time to prove himself, although we have a very strong suspicion how he’ll fare at this level.

The issue of the two goalkeepers is well documented and what seemed a bizarre pair of signings at the time seems utterly insane now.

So, we fear the drop. And some real transfer activity is needed if we are to avoid it. Let’s start with a goalkeeper, a central midfielder and a striker.

Aaaaaaaaaargh! Brentford 2-3 Swindon

So where to begin. They’ll be a separate article for Andy Scott’s increasingly repetitive post match ramblings so lets start somewhere else, the flipside as it were to the tempo fixated one. What say you Danny Wilson:

“This was a tough place to come, I promise you, and when they play like they did in the second half, it looks an even better result for us“

Hmm… well that’s certainly diplomatic.

The truth is however that currently Griffin Park doesn’t look a particularly tough place to come to and that good second half performances count for little if the first half performance is such that the game is already lost.

But Beesy is getting ahead of itself. Far ahead of itself infact.

So to Griffin Park where we lay this scene. Brentford welcomed Ryan Dickson back into the starting line up along with a much improved Carl Cort. Nicky Bull started in goal, which means that Brentford are the only club with two fit goalkeepers but still have a keeping crisis and Scott persisted in the frankly ridiculous right side Wilson-Saunders policy.

Before going further lets start with a positive. This match marks so far the high point for Cort’s Brentford career. Both he and MacDonald looked like they have a chance of forming a partnership and whilst sometimes guilty not being near the goal its was heartening to see both win so much consistently in the air and show some nice touches.

It was Swindon who shaded the early exchanges and fairly dominated the opening half an hour. They looked sharp. were comfortable with passing the ball on the ground and were decisive, making nice diagonal runs and generally playing the style of football that I’m sure Andy Scott dreams of beating the tempo out on his special tactics bongos.

In fact they entirely overran the midfield, in particular the Celtic loanee Simon Ferry (the number 30) and bloody JP McGovern. It was McGovern’s ball into the area for Alex Revell to crash his shot past Nikki Bull after a break down in play after 8 minutes to open the scoring. Maybe Beesy’s being harsh but he should’ve done better with it.

This was just the beginning of the madcap defending for Brentford that saw Swindon squander at least one one on one chance, the defence ignoring the deep run from the midfield whislt appealing for offside against Hutchinson. Oh and there were corners for Swindon. Lots of corners for Swindon which were always played short and no one ever went to the man.

The inevitable inevitably happened after 21 minutes when a diagonal ball past Phillips was picked up by Hutchinson who had the simply task of avoiding Nikki Bull and his ample frame.

Hutchinson is another Celtic loanee and in fairness it was a good goal, albeit one where maybe a challenge should’ve been put in before the ball breached the defence and maybe the defence allowed themselves to drop back too far.

And then not much happened. Brentford if anything improved. It would be nice to say this is due in large parts to tactical changes, but Brentford didn’t do anything especially different. The team at present is currently just not working.

I mean lets take for example the right side. Saunders, I think its fair to say hasn’t exactly set Bees fans pulses racing. Its hard to tell at the moment whether he’s really cut out for the League of the Damned. It would be easier to tell if he had a proper right back behind him of course. James Wilson is a wonderful player but no right back. He’s probably the best centre back we currently have.

And frankly we have a lot.

But Right Back… no. With Phillips looking… well ok-ish and Bennett clearly shot of confidence it would make sense shifting Wilson back across. Foster is clearly out of favour with Scott and Karleigh Osborne… well no-one wants that. What Brentford need is a player who is competent at Right Back but has no bells and whistles.

Enter Kevin O’Connor who fans of the past 8 years or so will tell you has only ever looked half competent when played at Right Back despite playing in ever other position. Even Martin Allen spotted that. This would also mean we could partner a good loan signing with Marcus Bean. I don’t know like Jay Tabb.

O’Connor, despite being a good servant, is not and never will be a central midfielder. The organised teams in this division with progressive midfielders will always dominant a midfield with him in it.

There’s also question marks over Sam Wood and Ryan Dickson (surely a midfielder no?) but it must be remembered a lot of these players are having to prove themselves at this level.

Anyway rant over… the second half.

As suggested about 700 words previously Brentford did play better in the second half. Swindon, of course, didn’t have anything to play for as such but it was a more heartening performance. On another day Brentford may have got something from the game and would of if Sam Saunders curling effort hadn’t clattered off the inside of the post before bouncing to safety (we’ve mentally blocked out Charlie Mac’s ridiculous skied rebound from ten yards from Saunder’s post clattering shot).

Putting the ball on the ground did pay dividends and Brentford enjoyed the lions share of the ball hitting the post again shortly after with a header.

Lucas proved the busier keeper without making particularly searching saves. He will also be known as the keeper who Carl Cort opened his Bees account. Latching onto a direct ball and using his strength to find space at the edge of the area Cort proceeded to lash the ball in (if you were at the ground) or hit a trundler (as it looks on TV) in. In doing so ending Beesy’s great hobo challenge and meaning that my fellow correspondant will soon be enjoy a delicious Plough lunch in the near future.

I hope Steve Kabba is melted done for glue as a result.

This seemed only to angry-fy Swindon who promptly scored the goal of the game with Revell being given too much space was allowed to run on to a through ball cut in side and fairly smashed in a shot into the top corner past Bull.

And so the match ended. Well there was ten minutes left and time enough for Brentford to pull another back… Charlie Mac scoring a header whilst on he’s knees from a corner. Quite what he was doing it such a precarious position in the six yard box Beesy can’t say but seeing as the ball went directly to him it can only be summised he was praying that the ball wouldn’t hit the first defender.

Did Brentford strive to get back into it? Yes. Did they stand a chance… no.

Match Ratings:

Nikki Bull 4 – Being harsh he should’ve perhaps done better on the first but what the hell was he thinking kicking the ball at (not into) the crowd in the second half. He did get a torrent of abuse and Swindon certainly seem to know a lot about he’s parents sexual predilictions but this was clearly evidence that he lacks not only the ability but the temperament to be a professional footballer.

James Wilson 5 – Ok. He’s not a Right Back. It completely neuters our right side and comprimises our defence.

Mark Phillips 5 – Looking a bit one paced.

Alan Bennett 4 – Clearly struggling at the moment

Ryan Dickson 6 – Played solidly. Beesy isn’t sure he’s a Left back but a welcome return

Sam Saunders 5 – Having to go off wing to get the ball. Jury’s Out but decent second half performance

Marcus Bean 5 – Solid

Kevin O’Connor 4 – NOT a central midfielder

Sam Wood 5 – Unlucky header against the post. OK-ish

Charlie MacDonald 6 – Good link up with Cort. Promising.

Carl Cort 7 – Man of the Match comfortably. More please.

Sub:

Weston 3 – Didn’t very little although didn’t have a great deal of opportunity.

Andy Scott press conference telepathy

“we ddn’t start at the tempo I expect of my teams…. We played a much better tempo in the second half… I’ll be having words with the players… They didn’t play the pattern I wanted…”

A few positive words about this Brentford team

They would absolutely walk the Conference.