I’m not even going to pretend I know a lot about Brentford, I don’t know how much money they roughly have, I don’t know what tactics they employ and I don’t know how much their fans get behind their squad other than what I’ve seen on Sky. However, since they lost in the 3rd tier Playoff Final a few years back they have struggled against relegation in each year except for the Martin Allen days.
They were finally relegated to this Division last season after an extremely poor start to the season, and just like Chester, they’ve appointed a manager who’s lost considerably more games than he’s won. In his 278 game management career, Terry Butcher has won just 93, lost 126, drawing the remaining 69. Included in that record is turning a fairly decent Motherwell side into a side that finished in the lower midtable of the Scottish Premiership every year.
As for their squad, they’ve recently added two strikers familiar to Imps fans. The first of which is Lee Thorpe, a man who was City’s top scorer for 5 years between 1997 and 2002. He left the Imps in 2002 and went to Orient but he’s been far from prolific since then, scoring just 30 league goals in 5 years for Orient, Bristol Rovers, Swansea, Peterborough, Grimsby and Torquay United.
The other signing is Alan Connell. The young striker has faced the Imps five times in his career, he’s scored in 3 of those games, had a goal disallowed in another. The only time he has yet to stick the ball in the Imps net is back in the 2005/6 season when City beat Torquay 2-0. That record has always given me the impression he’s a good striker and can score goals wherever he goes, but his overall record is just 24 goals in 120 league games is hardly the most prolific record. Most of those games have been as sub though, meaning his could still potentially score a fair few goals if given the right chances.
Other than that there aren’t many players I’ve actually heard of, but losing Stuart Nelson, a goalkeeper I have been impressed with when I’ve seen them, can’t help their cause. Due to not knowing a lot about most of their players it’s hard for me to predict their finishing position.
I’m predicting them to finish 18th based on Terry Butcher’s poor record, as well as the seemingly lack of a regular goalscorer. Brentford are a side that could very easily finish away from where I’m predicting them, but unfortunately it’s hard to predict a side that you’ve never seen in person.
Do you agree with 18th place, or do you think they can do better than this? Or even worse? Either way post your opinions below.
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