Dave’s Ramblings – Brentford

Back in the glamorous 60s and 70s, Brentford Nylons was a mail-order company famed for two things: selling nylon products (shocking, I know 😊) and pioneering polyester in quantities previously thought illegal. Their products were affordable, weirdly fashionable, and capable of generating enough static electricity to power a small seaside town.

 

Wearing one of their many nylon products wasn’t getting dressed, it was preparing for impact. You didn’t walk across a carpet… you charged across it. Door handles became Russian roulette. Cats avoided you. Balloons 🎈 stuck to you.

 

The static build up was so intense that sparks actually flew. Not metaphorically. I’m talking actual sparks. You could enter a dark room and briefly illuminate it like a disco ball having a nervous breakdown. 

 

In short, Brentford Nylons didn’t just cling, they attacked. And yet, people wore them anyway. Because fashion, in those days, demanded sacrifice… and the occasional mild electrocution.

 

OK, I’m aware you’re now asking yourself what this deranged wander through fashion history has to do with a football match. A fair question.  In fact a very fair question.

 

The connection is, at best, wildly tenuous. But it does contain the words Brentford and shocks, so I’m going to cling to it like a pair of nylon tights on a dry winter’s day.

 

Yes, we’re playing Brentford, and yes, we’re hoping to avoid a shock. Although, given our recent form, (Charlton aside) any shock would almost certainly involve us suddenly remembering how football works, playing well, and winning comfortably. 

 

So strap in. If there are shocks this afternoon, let’s hope they’re the good kind. Three points, competent defending, and absolutely no need for static discharge.

 

I obviously wrote that preamble in advance of the game. So the shock was that we got the points without all the things you’d expect to go with it. We’ve thrown away games where we have battered the other team and today we stole a win like it was something left unattended in a Tesco Express. I don’t want to rub it in, but if I were a Brentford fan I’d be crying to my mummy about how cruel the world is and commenting that at least Dick Turpin wore a mask when performing a robbery!!

 

From early in the game I did begin to question whether Maresca was still in the building, as the first half was played almost entirely in first gear. In fact, at times it felt like the players had slippers on. 26 minutes in and João Pedro finally gave us something to shout about when he fired a superb effort into the roof of the net, only for the offside flag to intervene. Bugger. VAR then stepped in and, after a wait long enough to rewatch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, decided he was onside, courtesy of what appeared to be a rogue fingernail. Cue very muted celebrations.

 

Brentford had plenty of chances to equalise before half time, yet somehow the ball flatly refused to go into our net. I suspect witchcraft must have been involved. Garnacho, who I thought was having a decent game, and was one of our better players, then missed an open goal from six yards, despite the laws of physics, common sense, and basic geometry all insisting that scoring was the easier option.

 

Brentford, now openly attempting to violate the laws of time, space, and footballing justice, continued to swarm forward. Rosenior then unleashed a tactical decision of such breathtaking lunacy that nearby pigeons briefly stopped to reassess their life choices. He removed Garnacho for Andrey Santos in a move apparently designed to test whether football could still function without logic. It smacked of trying to hold on to our one goal advantage. A very risky strategy indeed! The effect was instant and almost apocalyptic. Brentford attacked with the fury of a thousand suns in pursuit of an equaliser they were destined to score in every other dimension. We clung on like a man hanging from a helicopter, armed only with hope, fear, and a pair of trousers rapidly falling down. 

 

The Bees then decided to dip into the Chelsea handbook of defending, a glossy publication largely devoted to panic and poor decision making. This resulted in Delap being unceremoniously flattened by their keeper. Palmer, who was having one of those days where everything looked slightly harder than usual, still managed to send Kelleher the wrong way from the spot, making it 2–0 and that was pretty much that. 

 

So we somehow finished with a clean sheet, a concept I am still processing and may need professional help to fully accept, plus three points that launched us up to sixth. We did not deserve it, we did not earn it, and in several moments we actively tried to give it away, but football, in its funny old way, decided to smile upon us anyway. I won’t argue with the outcome, mainly because arguing with miracles feels ungrateful, and because we desperately needed a win from somewhere even if it arrived gift wrapped in confusion and disbelief.

 

My takeaways…

 

We most certainly got out of jail today, though quite how remains a mystery currently under investigation by scientists, philosophers and our good friends at the Met. If I’m being honest, I’m still not entirely sure how it happened, and I was there watching it. A large part of the problem appeared to be the alarming number of players off form, so many, in fact, that it briefly looked like we’d fielded a tribute team.

 

It definitely can’t be blamed on confusion over new tactics or instructions, because that would require there to be new tactics or instructions. Judging by what I saw today, absolutely nothing has changed on that front, except perhaps the level of disbelief that we somehow walked away with the points.

 

The big question I continue to wrestle with is what on earth has happened to Cole Palmer. He currently looks like a shadow of the pre-injury version who used to terrify entire teams. Now, everything feels half a yard slower, like he’s playing on slightly sticky grass that only he can see.

 

It could simply be that he needs a lot more minutes in his legs, which would be the sensible, grown up explanation. But the glacial pace of his recovery from this “groin injury” is starting to make me wonder whether it’s actually something far more serious. That probably sounds a bit unhinged, but it’s been so long that I’m beginning to suspect the injury might be emotional, spiritual, or caused by a curse placed on him sometime around October.

 

After the match, Liam Rosenior blamed a virus spreading through the squad. Judging by the performance, it appears to be highly contagious and resistant to all known forms of pressing, passing, and urgency. He said, “there were a few, I won’t say who, but there were a couple of players playing today who were complaining about their chests. They put in a magnificent effort.”

 

I sincerely hope that before Wednesday someone nips down to the chemist and clears the shelves of cough medicine, Lemsip and paracetamol. Paphos may not be the best team in Europe, but if we turn up playing like we did today, they won’t need to be. We definitely need to fix the many things that didn’t work this afternoon before they run out onto the pitch and we hear that bloody awful UEFA anthem.

 

It’s still very early days, and I don’t want to come across as the Grinch who stole Christmas, unplugged the tree, and sat on the remote. But the truth is Liam doesn’t just need results, he needs some actual, recognisable footballing performances to go with them. If we can manage that over the next couple of weeks, then balance will be restored and harmony will return. Until then, well we did gain two points on ArseNIL today. Reeeesult!

 

Onwards and upwards. UTC 💙