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Brentford 0 Notts County 0

A game that was billed as a 6 pointer and in the end the draw killed the hopes Brentford may have had of reaching the play-offs. This however takes their unbeaten run to 7 games, five wins followed by two goalless draws. Any Brentford fan being fair and rationale will agree that we are not in the top 6 best clubs in the division and that this team would be relegated immediately with very few points. A few weeks ago I wrote a rant saying that Uwe Rosler must go and I stand by my comments. Odd? Stupid? I stand by my comments because with a good manager we would be in the play-offs and would not be needing to go through this exercise of pretending we are good enough for promotion.

The game was a reasonable enough one and one that Notts County should have won 2-0 by half time. They missed two open goals and hit the bar with a great shot. Other than that not a lot happened apart from a Saunders free kick being headed off the line. Brentford played to their ability but hampered by having no serious strikers. Clinton Morrison cannot run, shoot, head, so his position in the team is maybe curious. An experiment that clearly has not worked as shown by Leon Legge being introduced as a second half substitute centre forward……..Some cruel wag at half time suggested that bringing on Simon Moore upfront would be an advantage…………

The reason why we have had a good run is down in part to three things, firstly some luck, secondly playing some woeful Lancashire teams ( Bury,Rochdale,Oldham) and lastly keeping a settled side. The roulette wheel that is Roslers picking machine must have broken 7 games ago. There is the essence of a decent team here but it takes 3 seasons to build a side and get out of this league. This maybe, just maybe, counts as the first of these. And this is assuming we buy two more strikers, minimum in addition to Stuart Dallas, that we keep Adam Forshaw and Jake Bidwell ( both of whom will do well at this level and give them a chance of moving upwards) and that we stop signing average midfield players, who are no better than what we have and keep them on the bench.

Man of the match? Sam Saunders for his work rate, his dead ball kicking was poor for him yesterday. I also remain unconvinced by Harlee Dean.