The Zenga boss is going – another crazy day in the Championship

Brentford fans can be glad that the most exciting thing to happen to us yesterday was the residual fallout from Saturday’s mascot race with Barnsley. This a situation now confirmed by club insiders as a win for Buzz, and a possible rematch, despite the claims of the Tykes. Yet elsewhere it was sacking season. Wigan dispensing with Gary Caldwell and Wolves relieving Walter Zenga of his duties after just 87 days in charge.

87 days. Wow. That really is crazy. To a limited extent, one can understand the situation at Wigan Athletic. They’ve been spoiled in recent years with a long run in the Premier League and even an FA Cup victory. Certainly, something away from their traditional tier three days where the most they could crow about was a Freight Rover Trophy victory. I forget who they beat.

Now, with only basement club Rotherham beneath them, they already find themselves staring an immediate relegation back to League One in the face. Despite the alleged inferno in Northern Ireland International Will Grigg, Athletic have only won twice all season. Rather than give Caldwell the time to adjust to Championship life Chairman David Sharpe has decided that after eighteen months in charge,  Wigan, “need to act now in the best long-term interests of the club.” With this decision, a fledgling career has been shot down in flames.

As for Wolves, that really is a shock. Nobody could deny the appointment of the, surprisingly, experienced Zenga was an unusual one. So for the club to set sail on this course but then abandon ship after less than three months is even more of a surprise. To an extent it reminds me of the Marinus scenario. An unexpected European manager coming in for his first role in England but barely surviving a couple of months. Yet can you compare the two?

Sure, immediate results hadn’t been great – four defeats out of the last five – but Wolves are, as it stands, only 7(seven) points away from the play offs. Marinus was a disaster. Zenga appears nowhere near that. Indeed with over 100 points still to play for then, from a Brentford perspective, perhaps Mark Warburton rather than Dijkhuizen would be a more accurate an comparison.

It was only around this time that Mark Warburton really hit the ground running during his first Championship campaign (although, of course, he also had a League One promotion under the belt). From a similar start that season we swept all around us aside as the Bees found form. The awful, awful #Novemberkings became our title as the Bees stormed up the table and came to within a Boxing Day win (thank, Ipswich) of topping the pile.

Marinus – didn’t last long

I just don’t get it. I’m not close enough to the action at Wolves to say how bad things really were. If, indeed, they were ‘bad’. Yet it was only last month the club recorded back to back wins over Newcastle United and then our own Brentford. Surely the situation can’t have soured that much? Indeed, outside of the top six, the most anybody has won is six games – that’s just two more than Wolves have achieved.

Wolves are, historically, a huge club. They have a fantastic stadium and wonderful support. But being ‘any good’ has to be worked at and isn’t a given just because you’ve won things in the past (Are you reading, Mr Mourinho? No – obviously – but the parallel is clear).

I can’t overly speculate on the situation at Moulineux. It certainly puts our own place into perspective where things seem massively stable. For all supporters can moan at times – and we are in our own mini blip at present with two points and one goal from four games – things are nowhere near that situation.

Who’d be a manager? And who is gong to take over at either club? Nobody comes out of this situation smiling except, perhaps, Steve Evans. The former Rotherham and Leeds United loud mouth is currently putting his feet up. Could we seen him back in action soon?

Here’s hoping….

Could it be time for Steve Evans?

Nick Bruzon

Don’t give in to the Dark Side. An apology

This should be a time for celebration. Brentford fans know what I mean. Instead, I’m angry again as Star Wars, the second best film franchise of all time (nobody can top ‘Roger’ era Bond) sends me to the bitter depths of despair. So angry it’s not even a football article today.

Yes, it is the fourth of May.

I apologise in advance for repeating a lot of what I’ve said before. I love Twitter but today it’s being given a wide berth. Sci-fi geeks and lovers of crap jokery everywhere have, already, began infecting my social media timeline with the hilarious ‘May the fourth be with you’ comment.

Even now, writing those horrible, horrible words, I can feel a little bit of sick rising to the back of my throat.

Please – I beg of you – it’s not too late. It’s not funny, it’s not clever, its not original and using this weak, weak pun does not make you into some 21st Century Oscar Wilde. I love bad wordplay as much as the next man but this limp ‘gag’ forsakes humour for twee. And those are two fields which are a world apart.

It’s the sort of ‘joke’ used by people who find The Krankies or ‘Big Mouth Billy Bass’ ( ‘Take me to the river” – don’t tempt me) the height of cultural sophistication.

So this fourth of May, if you really want to enjoy Star Wars then stick on The Force Awakens or Return of the Jedi. Perhaps fast-forwarding through any Ewok related content.

Just don’t. Use. That. Phrase.

Who is the real Brains of the bunch? Is this our away shirt?

The atmosphere surrounding England in the forthcoming World Cup is, quite literally, electric but for me there is as much excitement in the drip feed of the new kits to be worn in the league next season. Of course, we all know what the Brentford home and goalkeeper efforts are going to look like but what about the away version?

It’s fair to say that nobody knows. Like the mid-season appointment of Warbs to the Griffin Park managerial hotseat, could it be as big a surprise? Well, the clues are out there for the eagle-eyed reader (for eagle eyed, see also: stabbing wildly in the dark).

As regular commentator Bernard Quackenbush mentioned the other day, the reveal of the Brentford kit very much resembled the opening credits of TV’s Thunderbirds. A close up of each ‘vehicle’ from which it would be impossible to recognise the final design spec until the camera pulled away for that wide angle ‘reveal’.

I quite liked this analogy, until I started to look a bit further into this year’s Adidas catalogue. Amongst their designs already released are those for Middlesborough (h) and West Ham (a). Both feature broad, diagonal sashes and, particularly in the case of West Ham, could have been taken direct from Gerry Anderson’s puppet laboratory (a more sinister sounding place, I’m yet to imagine).

The Adidas ‘sash’ template for the forthcoming season. All a bit too ‘Gerry Anderson’

I have no issues with a shirt sash if done correctly – see Peru and Crystal Palace – but the latest Adidas effort is as subtle as Adrian Chiles desperately filling 40 minutes of lightning storm delayed England football last night. “Slow down”, he exhorted Ian Wright, “you’re talking too fast. Don’t you remember Poland? We’ve no idea how long we have to talk for”.

And given we seem to have thrown a lot of eggs in the basket marked ‘home and gk’, does this mean there is any room left for something special in the away design? Recent Brentford away efforts have seen black, yellow/black, black/gold, and the two-tone blue.

I’ve always been a fan of the latter but if we adopted this, with the aforementioned ‘sash’ template, then I can only see us with something very much akin to the West Ham model. And that would not be good.

Crudely photoshopped image of how a blue/blue sash kit might look

Still – this is all pure guess work. I have nothing more to base this on beyond unsubstantiated speculation and crazy theories. But it’s one to think about in the short term.

Our club hasn’t disappointed us so far and I am sure that, whenever the announcement is made (any comment, Mark Devlin?) we could be in for a treat.

The Thunderbirds style home shirt ‘teaser campaign’. Number 4 is, erm, Gordon Tracy