Wed 29 Jul 2020 22.35 BSTFirst published on Wed 29 Jul 2020 22.11 BST
Bryan Mbeumo celebrates scoring Brentford’s third goal against Swansea with Rico Henry. Photograph: Ben Evans/Huw Evans/Shutterstock
A night for moving on. For shedding baggage, and laying the past to rest. On the night Brentford said their farewells to Griffin Park, they came closer to top-flight football than they have done at any point since 1947. They did so with a sparkling modern brand of football quite at odds with the weathered girders and sardine seats of their old home.
A poor performance and the opportunity to control their future and possible promotion has gone.
The reason- pressure and anxiety? Lack of fitness after so many game and loss of movement and style? Poor passing and no real pressure on the opposition.
So back to likely play-off process after the last round of games next Wednesday unless wild things happen.
At 23-00 today the UK leaves the EU- after all this anst, anger and division. All of which is likely to continue. As many have said this is the end of the beginning, there is much to decide and clarify from now and there is again a time pressure to have many major decisions made by the end of the year- the transition period. There is a major decision point in June I believe which is to decide if an extension of the transition period is wanted and to apply. Already BJ has said there will not be one. As before the UK is boxing itself into a corner regarding the timetable, which result in pressure and more so on the UK side I expect. It would seem that this lesson has not been learned from the last 3 years of negotiations.
The newspapers have big editions today. Brexiters should be happy. I expect they will not be in future when things do not turn out swimmingly. They will look for someone else to blame.
A taste of the headlines, very positive in the Torygraph and how they beat the ‘establishment’. Enough to make you laugh:
and the future is clearly bright!more sanguine from the other side
Wed 18 Dec 2019 11.00 GMTLast modified on Wed 18 Dec 2019 11.22 GMT
Bryan Mbeumo wheels away after scoring the only goal in Brentford’s win over Fulham on Saturday. Photograph: Andrew Fosker/BPI/Shutterstock
“The BMW is still running fast,” said Thomas Frank, the Brentford head coach, referring to Saïd Benrahma, Bryan Mbeumo and Ollie Watkins after watching his three-pronged attack combine to devastating effect against Fulham at Griffin Park on Saturday. Watkins carried the ball to the edge of the box, where Benrahma took over, buying a yard of space before scooping a cross towards the back post for Mbeumo to fire the only goal of the game, his eighth of the campaign. Brentford will leave their 115-year-old stadium at the end of this season and have designs of going out with a bang.
Mbeumo, a £5.5m club-record signing, has scored in Brentford’s past four matches, including a 7-0 demolition of Luton. The 20-year-old winger is the latest Brentford player to make a seamless transition from Ligue 2 to the Championship after joining from Troyes in the summer, following in the footsteps of Benrahma and Neal Maupay, the striker who moved to Brighton in August for £16m after two prolific seasons.
Benrahma was a £2.7m signing from Nice after impressing on loan at Châteauroux, and Maupay a £1.6m arrival from Saint-Étienne after shining at Brest. The defender Julian Jeanvier, in effect John Egan’s replacement 18 months ago, joined from Reims, while Maxime Colin, now of Birmingham, piqued Brentford’s interest at Troyes. Yoann Barbet, now of Queens Park Rangers, joined in 2015 after a season at Chamois Niortais.
It is not only in the French market where Brentford have found joy; Watkins was a £1.8m buy from Exeter City in 2017, and in the summer they paid Barnsley £3m for Ethan Pinnock, who was playing for Dulwich Hamlet three years ago. Pinnock has been paired in central defence with Pontus Jansson, who was made captain after arriving from Leeds United in July. The pair in effect replaced Ezri Konsa and Chris Mepham, who this year sealed Premier League moves to Aston Villa and Bournemouth respectively, bringing in £27m.
Brentford have sold almost £100m of talent since 2014 and sales are vital to countering the club’s £10m-£20m annual operating loss. At 28, Jansson represented a noticeable shift, being the oldest outfield player to join since Lasse Vibe four years ago, but strengthening the defence was a priority.
Not exactly the result I wanted or indeed I think will be fruitful. Brexit will now happen as I am sure the negotiated withdrawal agreement will pass by the January 31 deadline. The format of the future after that is unclear and within the hands of Johnson. He will no longer be beholden to the DUP or the European Research Group cabal so maybe there will be something more integrated with the EU. Who knows as Johnson is a slippery character who has no problem with changing his mind when it suits his purpose.
A big loss for Labour which has already been met with ‘it was all to do with Brexit’ ( and not Corbyn or his project) versus ‘Corbyn is toxic and he must go’. Plenty of infighting to come and to be drawn out for a long time.
Just announced that there will be an election on December 12th. First December election for nearly 100 years.
BJ does not want parliamentary scrutiny of his agreement so an election instead. Tories confident of a win given their lead in the polls but that was the case last time!
