Andy Scott made a few changes to the side that drew against
Southampton in our previous match, with new loan signing John Akinde partnering MacDonald in preference to Ben Strevens or Carl Cort, and Sam Saunders, impressive when he came on as a subsitute in the previous match, was preferred on the right side of midfield to Sam Wood or another new loan signing, Lionel Ainsworth. A third loanee, Toumani Diagouraga, made his home debut in the middle of the park, this time because Marcus Bean had picked up a knock and wasn’t fit enough to even make the match day squad. Elsewhere it was the usual selections, Leon Legge and Tommy Smith continuing in front of Wojciech Szczesny, the latter two having their loan stays extended to three months and the end of the season respectively.

Perhaps the changes disrupted our concentration as Gillingham started the game much more brightly, and in truth should have been in front within a few minutes. Simeon Jackson outpaced Smith to reach a long ball over the top, and although Szczesny got a hand to the Canadian international’s shot, everyone, myself included, thought it was in. However, somehow tha ball bobbled onto the inside of the post and fortunately fell to a Bees player. That wasn’t Gillingham’s only chance either. They had some sustained possession in and around the Brentford penalty area and had a couple more efforts on goal, although neither severely tested our keeper.

Gillingham then created another golden opportunity as their right back Barry Fuller played a perfectly weighted through ball for the onrushing striker to pounce on. Only problem for Fuller was that he was attempting a backpass, and it went straight to MacDonald who found himself one on one with former Bees keeper Alan Julian. MacDonald went past Julian and went down, and despite the keeper’s protests (at first he seemed to be insisting he got the ball, and then was suggesting that MacDonald had dived) the penalty was given. MacDonald picked himself up and put the spot kick away low to Julian’s right to give the home side a slightly fortuitous lead.

The Bees got anoher slice of luck a short while after when Diagouraga went down in the area and the referee awarded another penalty. There didn’t seem much in the challenge, as although the defender didn’t get the ball he didn’t seem to get much of his man, and Diagouraga seemed more to stumble and go down rather than be hacked down or dive. No-one, not even the crowd, seemed to protest or shout for the foul to be given, but there you go. MacDonald stepped up for a second time and this time blasted the ball high into the top right hand corner, giving Julian absolutely no chance.

By this time GIllingham were getting a bit rattled, and the constant pressing by MacDonald and Akinde whenever a defender or their keeper attempted a clearance was forcing a few mistakes. Once such scuffed clearance was knocked forward again into the path of Weston on the left who ran at his defender, got into the area and blasted a low show between Julian and his near post.

The second half was a more lacklustre affair as Gillingham pressed without really ever threatening to score, apart from one mishit shot over the bar from a few yards out, but we seemed happy to sit back and sit on our three goal lead, which is fair enough really. A Brentford counter attack here or there looked dangerous though, exploiting the pace of Weston on the left and substitute Ainsworth on the right, the latter impressing in his cameo appearance. It was Weston though who finished the scoring for the afternoon, again breaking on the right and shooting low from a tight angle towards the near post. Although he again beat the keeper, he hit the post but, with the home side getting all the luck as per usual, the ball bounced out, hit Julian on the back of the head and went in.

It was an odd match really, as we could easily have been at least a goal down early on, but ended the first half 3-0 up. I don’t think we were lucky to be ahead; in fact our play after the first goal warranted the lead, with Saunders on the right consistently
threatening and playing good balls into the box, as well as forcing a good save from Julian from a free kick and hitting the woodwork later on. Ainsworth, Saunders’ right wing rival, also looked threatening but in a different way. He was more about pace and beating his man, and although Saunders did get past his full back on more than one occasion, you feel Ainsworth should do it with more regularity. Time will tell whether he can put the same sort of quality into the box once he beats his man though.

Up front, it was good to see MacDonald get a couple on the scoresheet, even if they were both from the spot. Charlie deserves it after putting in 150% in every match and doing so much work on his own up front. Now that he’s got Akinde up there with him, who looked a real threat on occasions but at times looked a bit short of match practice, it might take a bit of the workload off of Charlie’s shoulders and allow him to get into better positions in and around the box.

At the back we were, first few minutes apart, solid as always. You fancy Szczesny to save pretty much anything that comes his way, and today he did, while Smith and Legge were two rocks that dominated aerially all day long, with the latter as ever looking threatening at every set piece. Ryan Dickson had a quiet game by his standards, but his fellow full back Danny Foster again had an excellent game and has really become one of the most dependable players in the team. It probably helps having a decent defence alongside him and his old Dagenham mate Saunders in front of him, but he seems solid defensively and got forward well, getting a few good crosses into the area on both feet.

Was the scoreline a bit flattering? Perhaps. Gillingham were by no means the worst team that we’ve played this season, but we definitely deserved to win. I guess that’s all that counts really.

Up until then Norwich had seen Wojciech Szczesny deny them with some top saves, which is of course business as usual for the young Pole, and we had frustrated them with a narrow formation, putting Kevin O’Connor, Marcus Bean and new signing Toumani Diagouraga in midfield while Sam Wood paid close attention to Wes Hoolahan, which seemed to work and perhaps the frustration got to Holt, causing him to lunge in on Diagouraga. Unfortunately we perhaps lacked a bit up front, with Weston paired with Charlie MacDonald and as such couldn’t really capitalise with the extra man. Perhaps we should have at least got a draw out of the match, but it was not to be. Besides, better teams have gone to Norwich and been picked apart, so an unfortunate 1-0 defeat isn’t too bad.

If you want to read a more detailed match report then you might be best off heading to the Brentford website, but if you’re more of a picture person then you might want to look at the highlights on the BBC website. I haven’t been able to watch these as my computer thinks it’s abroad, but I’m sure they’re terribly exciting.

Anyway, we have the chance to bounce back almost immediately with a match at Griffin Park tonight. The only problem with this is that we’re facing Southampton. Had the south coast side not started on -10 points, they’d currently be 9th in the table, two places and six points ahead of us, and that’s including a fairly ropey early season. However, they’ve been in very good form recently, partly thanks to the free scoring Rickie Lambert, and have reached the Fifth Round of the FA Cup where they’ll face arch rivals Portsmouth, so they will be a dangerouse side to face.

Of course they were a decent side when we played them earlier in the season, drawing 1-1 at St Marys thanks to a Cleveland Taylor goal, so the aim will be to repeat that performance, or perhaps even better it. I fancy us to get a point at least from this one, maybe an exciting 3-2 victory. Maybe.

One player who won’t be featuring against Southampton, or indeed against anyone for the Bees in the near future, is John Bostock. Although we extended his loan deal from Tottenham for a week, he didn’t feature against Doncaster or Norwich, and the Daily Mail is reporting that we decided not to extend the youngster’s loan, rather than Spurs not letting us have him for longer. It also seems that Harry Redknapp isn’t too impressed with Bostock’s attitude whilst on loan with us.

Bostock was clearly a very talented player, but perhaps not what we need at the moment. He has the skills, but League One is more about physicality and, although he has shown us glimpses of his ability, such as his debut against Millwall and his cross against Colchester, he’s given the ball away too often. He wants to play in the Championship now though, and given the right team he’d do well there. Put him in a good footballing side and I think he’d do well at that level. If he gets his head down and works at it though, he’ll be a good Premiership player in the future, trust me. Maybe he’ll have some big North London derby battles with Szczesny in the not too distant future?

Wojciech will now stay with the Bees until the end of the month, and in even more exciting news, we’re still in discussion with Arsenal about extending the deal until the end of the season! As such, Wojciech will be available to line up against Norwich tomorrow at Carrow Road, as well as Tuesday’s match at home to Southampton and next weekend’s trip to Oldham.

I think one word sums this new up: awesome.

So far the January transfer window has been open for a whopping three weeks and as far as I can tell we’ve only signed Tommy Smith on loan from Ipswich and extended John Bostock’s loan for a measly week. This is not the hugely exciting transfer window that I was hoping for, so Andy Scott has helped me out by bringing in Peterborough United midfielder Toumani Diagouraga on loan for a month, with a view to a loan til the end of the season.

A teammate of top Bees striker Steve Kabba at Watford, Toumani played for Swindon, Rotherham and Hereford on loan before joining the latter on a permanent deal. He then joined Peterborough after Hereford’s relegation to League Two last summer, and has made 22 starts for them in the Championship and League Cup. Not too shabby.

As we’ve brought a new central midfielder in, we must be doing one of four things:

• Dropping Kevin O’Connor
• Dropping Marcus Bean
• Playing more central midfielders, going back to the 4-5-1 which we employed against Leeds and MK Dons to decent effect
• Putting Diagouraga in goal because he’s quite tall and, let’s be honest, he’ll probably be better than Lewis Price.

The last option probably isn’t that likely. Anyway, I believe that Toumani is supposed to be more of a holding midfielder, and if Scott thinks the same then that might mean O’Connor’s place is more at risk. Maybe.

Just as one difficultly pronounced player has joined the Bees, it seems that another is on his way out, or rather isn’t staying any longer.  The chances of us extending Wojciech Szczesny’s loan spell at Griffin Park, which were thought to be pretty good as Wojciech himself wanted to stay, seem to have disappeared. This is because Arsenal have been impressed with the young Pole’s performances while with Brentford and now want him back at the Emirates, according to those excellent people over on the GPG. They’re usually right over there, so sadly for us this is probably the case.

Apparently Wojciech has been bumped up to number 3 in the Arsenal goalkeeper pecking order so is needed to sit around and not quite get into the match squad, but it’s a step in the right direction and he’ll be showing Almunia and co up sooner rather than later I think. It’s a shame, but he was never going to be with us for that much longer; he was just too good I think. Good news for Wojciech though, as he has the talent and now he’s had the chance to prove it in competitive matches.

Anyway, our focus must now turn to getting ourselves a new goalkeeper. Lewis Price had one of his best matches for the Bees against Doncaster, but I don’t think he’s the answer. Ben Hamer seems to be very much number 2 at Reading now, but as all their senior keepers, bar Hamer and Adam Federici, are out on loan I can’t see him coming back to us. Perhaps if Szczesny has gone up from number 4 to number 3 at Arsenal, we can have their new number 4? We, as ever, shall have to wait and see.

In any case, Wojciech will be fondly remembered. And when in years to come he’s pulling off awesome saves for Arsenal on Match of the Day, I will tell anyone who will listen “He used to play like that for Brentford a while ago, you know?”. I’m already looking forward to it.

In truth we should have claimed a replay as, although Doncaster and in particular Billy Sharp had more than a few goalscoring opportunities, neither side really dominated the match, but in the end the away side’s Championship class perhaps gave them the edge.

Before the match, Andy Scott’s main headache was trying to sort out who was and who wasn’t available.  Negotiations with Tottenham regarding John Bostock’s loan spell were still ongoing, so the two clubs agreed to extend the loan by a week so he could play on both Tuesday and this coming Saturday while they worked out whether he’d stay any longer after that.  There’d not been any further news on extending Wojciech Szczesny’s loan deal, and in any case Arsenal didn’t want him cup tied so Lewis Price came in between the sticks.  Tommy Smith wasn’t given permission to play in the cup by parent club Ipswich, so Alan Bennett slotted in alongside Leon Legge in defence, and Carl Cort was rendered ineligible due to not having signed his contract extension quite soon enough, so Charlie MacDonald and Ben Strevens continued up front.  The only surprise selection was that of Sam Wood on the right hand side instead of Bostock, presumably because Wood would offer a bit more defensively than the young Spurs man.

However, no-one really offered much defensive protection early on as Doncaster cut through us seemingly at will, and if they had not wasted some decent chances they could have easily won the match within ten minutes.  Billy Sharp had two good chances early on, instead blazing shots wide, and the same player rounded Price later in the half but again shot wide.

Aside from this lack of shooting ability, Doncaster looked a good side.  Their players looked good on the ball, and their passing was quick, their movement was good and they played nice football.  As such we had our work cut out but didn’t let them continue their good start.  Myles Weston, fresh from his brace against Carlisle on Saturday, was again a threat down the left hand side, his pace worrying the Doncaster defence, and Ryan Dickson gave the usual top quality support to the winger, embarking on some trademark runs of his own. On the other side Wood did well, despite his lack of a right foot, and Danny Foster looked good defensively and got forward a bit more than usual.

Good performances would mean little if they didn’t actually do anything of note though, and sadly a lack of a cutting edge up front cost us. Weston got a few decent crosses in but no-one managed to get a strong enough header on one to genuinely worry Neil Sullivan, MacDonald heading one at the far post early on and Strevens putting a header over. Wood did well on occasions when cutting in off the right hand side but almost exclusively picked the wrong option when it really mattered, one decision to shoot weakly when a pass to either striker or Weston out on the left would have been a much better idea.

Doncaster’s class started to show in the second half as we started sitting back more, tiring perhaps from constantly chasing the ball and closing the opposition down. The away side’s clever corner routines, which were usually played short or lofted towards players just in and around the box and not the usual cross into the heart of the area, often created decent chances and it wasn’t really a shock when one such set play created their goal. A corner from their right hand side was played into Brian Stock on the edge of the area and, although he scuffed his effort, it fell to James O’Connor and he headed past Price from close range.

Up until this point we hadn’t made any substitutions, perhaps somewhat surprisingly given our lack of any attacking threat in the second half, but the chances came at the end of normal time in the shape of David Hunt and Sam Saunders. Why Bostock didn’t come on is a bit of a mystery to me, but it looked like being an inspired decision when a cross was drilled into the box, finding Saunders unmarked six yards out. Unfortunately for Saunders he barely made any contact with the ball and the chance, and indeed the match, was gone.

Plenty of positives can be taken from the match – we were by no means overawed by a midtable Championship team, and a particularly good footballing team at that, but did we do enough to say we should have won? No. Would we have won the replay? Doubtful. Did we show enough to suggest that we have enough in the bank, particularly with a side weakened in ineligibilities, to stay in League One and cement a mid-table place? Definitely. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, that’s what’s most important.

Brentford’s Premier League loan duo John Bostock and Wojciech Szczesny saw their loan deals expire after Saturday’s match against Carlisle – but it seems both would like to stay at Griffin Park for a bit longer.

It was thought that Bostock might be on his way after Saturday’s match, with Spurs boss Harry “who’s inked me??” Redknapp wanting him to play at a higher level than League One, but the player himself told the Hounslow Chronicle the following:

“It’s more than likely I’ll stay for another month, then see who else comes in for me. The Championship will be a good step up for me. But I’ve loved every minute of it here, and have learned a lot.”

This deal would make sense. Although he had a blinding début against Millwall, scoring two goals in his first ever competitive ninety minutes of football, John hasn’t really continued to hit these heady heights. There’s probably a few reasons for this, like inexperience or being played out on the wing when he’s naturally a central midfielder, and he’s probably not quite ready to play regularly at Championship level. Staying with us for another month sounds like a good plan to me, especially seeing as we could have a fair few matches to catch up on in the next few weeks.

Extending Wojciech Szczesny’s loan deal could also be crucial to seeing how our season pans out. If he stays, his ridiculously accomplished goalkeeping will win us points and will win us matches by itself. If he doesn’t and we end up having to stick with Lewis Price for the rest of the season, we probably won’t do so well. Luckily for us Wojciech fancies hanging around for a bit longer, something he told the club’s website:

“I would be delighted to stay. We are seeing Arsene Wenger on Monday and I have said I want to stay. If he says it is OK I will play next Saturday, I won’t be available on Tuesday.”

“I really want to stay here and win some more games.”

That’s the spirit. Quite why he’s saying he’d be OK to play next Saturday but not tomorrow I’m not sure. I’m assuming he wouldn’t be available tomorrow as Arsenal don’t want him cup-tied, but then as we’re going to beat Doncaster 8-0 we’ll be playing in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup at Derby on Saturday. Surely Wojciech isn’t expecting us, with a different and more inept goalkeeper playing, to lose against Donny?

In any case, signing the Pole in goal up for a bit longer would be a brilliant bit of news. Getting him on loan for the rest of the season would be a masterstroke. I’m going to guess we’ll get him for another month and no more though, with Arsenal doing what Bostock wants to do and getting Szczesny on loan at a Championship side for the rest of the season. Hope we get him for the rest of the season though.

Myles Weston again struck twice to condemn Carlisle to their second 3-1 defeat at the hands of Brentford this season.

With a few changes in and out of the squad since our last match back in December against Charlton, there were inevitably a couple of changes to the side. Wojciech Szczęsny returned in goal in the place of fellow loanee keeper Lewis Price, which Tommy Smith filled the void in central defence left when Ipswich teammate Pim Balkestein returned to their parent club. Up front Charlie MacDonald returned from suspension to partner Ben Strevens in the place of the injured Rhys Murphy, now back with Arsenal, and Myles Weston was preferred to Sam Wood on the left hand side of midfield.

Apart from an early Strevens cross that couldn’t quite find MacDonald in the middle, Carlisle had the best of the opening half hour, although they couldn’t carve out any clear-cut chances. A couple of efforts from around the edge of the area were well saved by Szczęsny, the second of which was a particularly good save, getting down very quickly to save a shot that was going right in the bottom right hand corner.

There was also a shout for a penalty for the away side when Richard Keogh went down under a challenge, but the referee wasn’t giving anything. This didn’t seem to please Keogh too much as the defender picked himself up and went in very late on Leon Legge, a challenge that on another day with another referee could perhaps have earned the Irishman a red card. Instead he got a yellow and was booed for the rest of the afternoon by the Bees fans. Fair enough really.

The home side did have their moments though. Ryan Dickson and Weston were looking threatening down the left, using Weston’s pace and Dickson’s trickery to create crossing opportunities. One particularly good Dickson run saw him breeze past two defenders before putting a low cross in that was cleared, but the ball fell to Kevin O’Connor whose shot from the edge of the area was blocked, giving Carlisle the chance for a quick break that Smith thwarted with some good defending.

It was a bit of quick thinking that broke the deadlock. Strevens was fouled in the air around the halfway line on the right and John Bostock took a quick free kick, releasing MacDonald. The striker cut inside, then out, then in again and then out again before squaring perfectly for the onrushing Weston to tap in from close range. The goal was probably against the run of play as up until then Carlisle had had most of the play, but after the goal we seemed to settle down and had the better of things after that.

Another bit of quick thinking put Weston away down the left and his deep cross found Bostock at th far post, but although he was able to control the ball well, he couldn’t quite get the shot away and the chance was gone. We did get a free kick shortly afterwards though when Bostock was fouled, and Graham Kavanagh, who had been constantly whinging and moaning about every single decision that had gone for or against Carlisle until that point, finally talked his way into the referee’s book. His mouth nearly got him in trouble again before half time, with his captain being called over to help shut him and his teammates up at last.

The opening minutes of the second half were dominated by Brentford, or by Bostock in particular. The youngster started cutting inside a bit more and looked threatening with the ball at his feet, sending MacDonald clean through with a delightful through ball through a defender’s legs, but Charlie ran into another defender’s path and the chance was gone. Bostock also started fancying his chances from long range, cutting in off the right hand side to shoot left footed with one effort going high and wide, but a second forced a good save from Adam Collin, who could only parry the ball straight to Carlisle’s nemesis Weston, who stroked the ball home right footed from the edge of the area.

At 2-0 Carlisle decided to push for a goal that little bit more. Richard Offiong came on and looked a handful, a couple of runs from the substitute looking dangerous, before a Keogh cross/shot found Tom Taiwo in the area only a few yards out, but his shot was magnificently saved by Szczęsny. It was a proper world class save, the Pole diving low down to his right, putting his outstretched right hand onto the ball on the line to both stop it going in and to stop it bouncing straight out to Taiwo or any of his teammates who were lurking with intent.

However, Carlisle were given a lifeline when the referee awarded them a penalty. Scott Dobie burst through the middle, and sandwiched between Danny Foster and Legge he went down. My initial reaction was that it was probably a foul, but as I was in line with the edge of the area I felt it was outside the box. Furthermore, having seen a replay you can clearly see that Legge wins the ball and that’s it’s a wonderful tackle. Instead, the centre back received a yellow card for his excellent tackle and Ian Harte sent Szczęsny the wrong way to pull one back for the visitors.

You might have thought that Carlisle would subject us to a barrage of balls into the box and push for the equaliser, but they never really threatened to do anything like that. Perhaps this frustrated them as Offiong stupidly followed through when Szczęsny picked the ball up in the area and caught the keeper in the face, but the referee deemed this to only be worthy of a yellow card.

Nevertheless we, and Szczęsny, got our revenge when Dickson ran onto a ball on the left hand side, steamed into the area, cut back onto his right and put a ball across the area. His cross wasn’t the greatest and hit a defender, but fortunately it rebounded straight back to the left back who slammed the ball into the net from close range. Szczęsny then showed that as well as being a top class keeper, he’s also got a bit of a personality as he ran to the other end of the pitch to celebrate the goal with his teammates, right in Offiong’s face. The keeper got a yellow card for his over exuberance, and the Pole reacted to the referee by sarcastically bowing. Good stuff.

In the end it was a deserved win, as although Carlisle had a lot of the ball in the opening half hour, they never really did anything with it, and when they actually got a shooting opportunity they found a keeper who was determined not to be beaten. We moved the ball around quickly, using Weston’s pace on the left to good effect, and were worthy of the three points.

Star man for me has to be the Pole in goal, Szczęsny. Last year I was a massive Ben Hamer fan, but Szczęsny makes Hamer look a bit rubbish. How on earth he is only fourth choice at Arsenal is a mystery to me. He’ll be in their first team within a couple of seasons, trust me. Until then, hopefully we can keep him on loan for the rest of the season as he’s a massive player for us. Without his saves early on we could have been a couple behind, and his save in the second half was just tremendous.

I do however want to make it clear that everyone else had a great game as well. Dickson’s goal was just desserts for a tireless display, and fellow full back Foster had a good game, coming close to his first goal for the Bees with a strike late on. Legge and Smith combined well in defence, Legge winning everything in the air and Smith dealing with everything that came his way well. O’Connor and Marcus Bean had their best games for a while, with the former winning every tackle, picking up all the loose balls and getting the ball to the attacking players quickly so we could counter. Strevens and MacDonald worked hard up front without ever really threatening to score goals themselves. Thankfully Weston had his scoring boots on today, with his pace frightening the Carlisle defence and he could have had his hat-trick had he taken a couple of the other chances that fell his way.

The best thing about the match though was that it actually happened! We haven’t had a match since 28th December, and to be treated to a genuinely exciting match was great. Roll on another good match at home to Doncaster on Tuesday!

As mentioned previously, Steve Kabba is on loan at Burton Albion. The club have now confirmed that Steve will stay with the Brewers until the end of the season, but they’ve also confirmed that Steve will have a familiar face joining him at the Pirelli Stadium: Cleveland Taylor.

You may remember that, like Steve, Cleveland was one of Andy Scott’s many summer signings, joining from Carlisle. At the time I believed that he would be “a very good addition to the squad”, and Andy had tracked the winger for a year with a view to adding him to the squad. A promising start to his Brentford career, with a diving header against Southampton at St Marys a highlight, suggested that Cleveland was going to do well for us, but a series of inconsistent and ineffective performances have left him behind Sam Saunders and John Bostock in the right side of midfield pecking order.

As such, getting him out on loan to get some games, particularly since we’ve not had any reserve matches for a while, is a good idea. In theory Cleveland should rip a few League Two defences to bits, and if he does that on a regular basis he could come back to us next season, confidence restored, and do the same to some League One defences. Or he’ll have put himself nicely in the shop window and get himself a new team for next season.

Another clever thing about the deal is that we’re paying Carlisle a bit of extra cash for every 15 games he plays for us, up to 60 I believe. If he’s not here, he can’t play and if he doesn’t play, we don’t pay. Frees up a bit of the playing budget perhaps to allow another signing? Seeing as John Bostock’s loan deal from Tottenham expires after this weekend’s match against Carlisle, we could be left with only Sam Saunders as a recognised right-sided midfielder, so unless Bostock’s deal is extended we’ll need some cover there. It does look like we might be dipping into the transfer market as well, if Andy Scott’s comments in the Hounslow Chronicle are anything to go by:

“I’d still like to bring in one or two more faces, and if we can get some players who aren’t playing out on loan we will, as we haven’t had a reserve team game in 10 weeks. However, I’ve spoken to them all and let them know exactly what they need to do to get back into the side.”

“It’s a huge step up, as people like Sam [Saunders] have found, as well as Alan Bennett, who was brilliant last season but struggled at times this time round. But I don’t want to get rid of players en masse as we need a stronger squad for this level of football.”

Hmm. I’m sure all will become clear before the end of the transfer window.

After literally a few minutes of worrying over whether he’d sign a new deal, Brentford today announced that Carl Cort has signed a new contract which will keep him at Griffin Park until the end of the season.

Carl’s previous deal expired a few days ago, and it had previously been thought that we wouldn’t re-sign him as negotiations hadn’t gone that well and he’d slipped down the pecking order. However, although Charlie MacDonald and Ben Strevens seem to be our first choice pairing at the moment, there’s very little in our striking department, apart from Cort of course. He showed that he could be at least a useful option to bring off the bench against Charlton just after Christmas, where he had only been on the pitch for a few minutes before netting the goal which temporarily put us in the lead, and his aerial presence and good touch in general impressed.

Furthermore, it’s unlikely that Strevens and MacDonald will play every single game for us from now until the end of the season, particularly now that we’re going to be busy playing all these postponed games in the next couple of months, so signing up another striker who we already know all about makes sense. Giving Carl a deal that only extends to the summer also makes it fairly low risk, should his injury problems flare up again or should he be totally rubbish.

On the balance of things, I think Andy Scott has made the right decision here. Seems like he thinks he’s made the right decision as well, going by his comments on the Brentford website:

“I am very keen to try and keep the squad together as a unit for the remainder of the campaign and I am therefore delighted that Carl has agreed to stay as he continues to have a significant part to play for the rest of the season.”

Good stuff.

In other news, the rearranged FA Cup match at home to Doncaster has shockingly been postponed, as was expected yesterday. However, the club are confident that the Carlisle match, scheduled for Saturday, should get the go-ahead. As was expected yesterday.

Again, good stuff.

However, the club have now realised that even if the pitch is in perfect condition, it’s the surrounding areas that will cause the most problems, as frozen pavements and roads mean people could fall over which means matches get postponed, as is alluded to in the following:

However over the past twenty four hours the pitch and surrounding areas have shown no improvement whatsoever and with the worsening conditions and the forecast of more snow and sub zero temperatures, it has been decided that it would all be to no avail and the snow clearance will not now take place. Braemar Road and the other side roads surrounding Griffin Park are also very hazardous and have yet to be gritted.

There’s still going to be a pitch inspection tomorrow morning but seeing as the pitch is still going to be covered in snow as no-one’s going to be clearing it, I can’t see how the match could possibly be given the go-ahead, save for a dramatic rise in temperature in the next few hours (and given that it’s snowing here in south-east London as I type this, I think that’s somewhat unlikely). As such, it looks like we’ll lose our third match in a row due to the weather, with the next scheduled match at home to Carlisle on Saturday 16th. The prospects for that match look a bit more promising as the forecast has sweltering temperatures of up to 4°C in the week ahead, so that should theoretically see off all the ice and snow on both the pitch and the surrounding areas. Fingers crossed anyhow!