Stuart Dallas to Leeds United? Get on your bike.

With Brentford due to play a final warm up at Norwich City today, our team selection could have more significance than anybody realises. With both Leeds United (Stuart Dallas) and Hull City (Andre Gray and Moses Odubajo) coveting several of our bigger name players according to rumour, it will be interesting to see how many of them feature. And specifically because Marinus told Beesplayer last week that this line up would feature 90% of the team he has pencilled in to kick off the season opener against Ipswich Town on August 8.

Much as I am still intrigued by the amount of noise being generated from quote free rumours (with a journalistic, “I understand / “sources close to the club”” being about as ‘solid’ as it gets), reading the comments from Friday’s article the Leeds supporters are convinced that the Stuart Dallas story is nailed on. Phil Hay of the Yorkshire Evening Post, apparently, a writer who only deals in certainty when it comes to impending transfers – I guess the journalistic equivalent of our own Beesotted.

To read the rest of this article, season 2015/16 is now available to download onto Kindle (and other electronic reading device) in full, as :   Ready. Steady. Go Again. : Brentford FC season review 2015 – 2016

Thanks for reading and all your comments over the course of the season. For now, it’s the annual clean up to make more space on the site for the inevitable follow up. However, ‘close season’ will continue in full, further along.

But wait, like all the best infomercials, there’s more. The last three seasons of the Last Word : Celebrating like they’d won the FA Cup; Tales from the football village and Ready. Steady. Go Again are also available in one combined volume as: 

Brentford Football Club – The Bees are going up. Season reviews: 2013/14, 2014/15 & 2015/16 

We did. And we still are ! 

Its all about the kit, man. And the Bees.

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Billy’s gentle probing confirms Douglas departure as Bees go down.

After the high of victory against Stoke City at the weekend, Brentford came back down to earth with a bump, of sorts, following Tuesday night’s 2-1 defeat at Luton Town. And elsewhere, there was a surprise turnout for the development squad at Dundee United.

First though, the Luton game. I wasn’t there – and fairplay to the 242 Brentford fans who did make it across – so it’s hard to say much in regards to the performance directly. I, like many, was reliant on Beesplayer where we learned as much after the game as during it.

Billy Reeves, who had used half time to give us a potted run through of his pre-Bees career (including a lexicon of fascinating facts about former band mate Sophie Ellis-Bextor) then flipped the tables. Having been gently probed by Mark Burridge at half time he adopted his own, more typical, role of interviewer to quiz Marinus.

theaudience – Billy has many strings to his bow

I like Billy. A lot. We all know what we are going to get when he is in the hot seat and, as he had earlier told Mark, its because he is a fan. He asks those questions we want to know.

Sure enough – the big one on everybody’s lips at present is about Jonathan Douglas. We’ve all read the stories to suggest that he’s on his way out of Griffin Park but was it true?

So Billy put the question and Marinus was able to confirm in a very direct answer. I have to be honest I was surprised by the openness of his reply (but that’s no bad thing) as he told listeners, “He’s not part of the squad. He’s training separately…it’s better to move on, for his future, and for Brentford.”

This is a rapid fall from grace for the previously untouchable midfielder and one does wonder if anything else has happened behind the scenes to trigger such a course of action. Whilst the legs were clearly catching up on him in the second half of last season, don’t forget he was captain as recently as the Boreham Wood friendly.

Some will cry – Dougie was very popular with many supporters. Personally, I was of the opinion that his time had come. The goals were great but we were left exposed time and again last season by those meandering sorties up field that then left a gap you could park an oil tanker in.

With the midfield already providing problems of the best sort – and Dave Morley, alongside Mark B, really struggled to name his own starting XI for the season opener against Ipswich – perhaps Dougie has paid the price. I’d still expect more to follow him out of the door, though.

Dougie – in happier times under Mark Warburton

Up front, Philipp Hofmann got the goal for Brentford – his second in as many games – which prompted more questions about that position. Specifically, Andre Gray. And only because, like Dougie before him, the other nagging rumour that won’t go away is in regards to potential bids for him. Hull City AFC are the latest team being inked to a bid.

Sadly Billy missed his cue on this one. You could almost hear the self-administered ‘slap to forehead’ as he realised, with our head coach having departed, that this was the other thing he really should have asked about. The official line from the club is that Marinus wants all his players to stay. I’d hope so.

Still, like the first team, this is all about getting back up to full speed. Billy’s gentle probing is always a great reason to stick around after full time for anybody unfortunate enough not to be at the game. Like the Bees, perhaps it was only natural that we might make the odd mistake as we get back into the swing of things after the summer break.

Besides, Billy did learn another key nugget of information. That the team to line up at Norwich City on Saturday will be 90% of the one Marinus expects to start against Ipswich Town, in the league, the following weekend.

Dave Morley – you’d better get your notepad ready.

And finally, Kevin O’Connor. Firstly, a reminder that 100% of any sales of my season reviews 2013/14 and 2014/15 are currently going towards his charity cycle ride this weekend. I had promised to donate anything raised and challenged my fellow author (although that is the loosest term when it comes to yours truly) Greville Waterman to do the same. Fairplay to Greville who has already weighed in with a very generous donation.

Certainly, that’s something I’ll match in the likely event it doesn’t get surpassed ahead of the designated time – next Saturday. Alternatively, if you’d like to contribute to the casue directly then you can do so at www.givey.com/ride100bfccst aswell as learning more about this event.

So perhaps it was with this cycle in mind that the development squad had a somewhat familiar face in the line up at Dundee United yesterday (and thanks to Andrew Gardner, @bodge1876, on twitter). Was it merely an attempt to keep fitness levels up or is Kev contemplating what Sid Waddell so famously once described as “The biggest comeback since Lazarus “?

Still got it, Kev..