Short Term Pain, Long Term Gain
- essentialbrentford
- Aug 30, 2015
- 3 min read
Brentford have not consistently looked like a mediocre side for a good three years now. Finishing 3rd in 2013, 2nd in 2014 and 5th in 2015, Bees fans have gotten used to a certain feeling.
And that feeling is winning.
With the start of the season not going the way many Brentford fans would have hoped it is easy to start being negative and critical of the team's performances.
Some fans have taken to social media to voice their displeasure at the players, the owner and the manager.
It is true that performances this season have been poor and that the team have not yet met the very high standards that we reached last year, but sometimes tough times must be endured in order to consolidate and build upon previous successes.
The performance against Reading at Griffin Park was at best mediocre, and at worst very poor. Had it not been for David Button and the infamous Ealing Road crossbar we could have been four or five down at half time. There is no denying that for much of the match Brentford had the look of a lower mid-table side.
This trend has been evident throughout the opening fixtures:
Ipswich - Poor display, should have lost.
Bristol City - Poor display, looked like losing before the red card.
Burnley - Poor display, lacked creativity.
Reading - Poor display, deserved to lose.
The cause of this poor run of performances has mainly been bad luck.
For one, injuries have caused the loss of several key players (see "How Costly Are Brentford's Injury Casualties" for the exact figures).
Jota, Bjelland, McEachran and MacLeod have all been sidelined, meaning that players such as Clarke and Udumaga have had to have been called upon. For a side with so much depth a few weeks ago we have been reduced to bringing on players with no Championship experience whatsoever.
Secondly, it takes time for new players to gel in with one another. Following our radical overhaul of both playing staff and coaching staff Brentford is very much a club in transition. We cannot expect the new regime to be churning out results immediately; it must be given time to settle.
Our new signings are all good players and it is too early to be criticising them and saying that they're not good enough. Both Vibe and Hoffman have proven that they know how to strike a football, and now that they're off the mark it can only do us good.
After three highly successful years we now face the possibility of a season of mediocre, mid-table football.
It is possible that Brentford have a "Stevenage moment", at which point we will wake from our slumber and start tearing apart opposition again, but at this point it seems unlikely.
We are only four games into the season and if we win our game in hand could go to within a point of the play-off places, but the Brentford who pass the other team off of the park seems to have been replaced by a Brentford who looks blunt going forward and who do not take care in possession.
But that's okay.
The most imperative thing to remember is that we have a system in place that is more than likely going to guide us to eventual Premier League football.
Many people doubt the "Moneyball" system but it has proven to work.
Look at Midtjylland, who reached the Europa League after a victory against Southampton. They were a mid-table side in Denmark before Benham took over and revolutionarised their footballing philosophy.
Look at our players, such as Jota, Gray, Odubajo and Dallas who were all signed using statistics (to some extent or another) and are now worth much more than we bought them for.
And finally look at us. Since we started using the mathematical modelling in the days of Uwe Rosler (and yes, we were using statisitcs that early, just not to the same extent as we are now) we have been transformed from a mediocre League 1 team into a side qualifying for the Championship Play-Offs.
And all that has happened in just three seasons.
So if this season we do finish 10th or 13th or 16th this campaign then rest assured that we will come back even stronger next season when we don't have half our squad injured and when the structure of the club has settled into place.
We as fans must be patient, get behind the team and wait for success to come.
Because it will.
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