Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,376
Ben McAleer is the latest pundit I've read who seems to think that Brentford are the best equipped of the promoted teams despite finishing a full ten points behind Norwich last year: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...d-clubs-stay-up-brentford-norwich-and-watford
I've watched and read quite a lot of season previews and the received wisdom seems to be that Norwich haven't changed at all and will go back down, that Watford's squad isn't good enough and that they will join them, but that Brentford are going may find the top league a breeze and become the next Leeds/Sheffield United/Wolves, untroubled by a relegation scrap all season.
Now this may turn out to be the case, but i'm finding it hard to understand what has prompted this view. Brentford are a well run club who play some good football, just like Norwich. The story of the promotion to the top league after so many years has a bit of romance about it, like when Bournemouth and Brighton joined. However, they didn't walk the Championship like Wolves and Leeds did. They went up through the play offs. Based on previous years, this already makes them one of the prime candidates to get relegated. They also conceded more goals than the other two promoted sides last year, letting in 42 compared with Norwich's 36 and Watford's 30. Of the last 15 promoted teams, the only survivors who conceded more goals in their promotion season were Huddersfield and Aston Villa.
I know that it's not Brentford's fault that pundits are getting over excited about them, but it just seems like there is a different attitude to them than there was to most other relatively small teams who got promoted to the top division for the first time in the Premier League era and this has got me irritated with them already. I seem to remember that the likes of Bournemouth, us and Huddersfield were all given absolutely no chance of surviving in our first season. Now it could be that the fact that we all did has been a learning experience for pundits, but I just get the impression that they are all just desperately hoping for one of the three to be the 2021/22 version of Leeds and have picked Brentford because they aren't old news. Norwich are better than they were when they finished 20th. Watford under-performed their xp considerably to get relegated in 2020 and have bounced straight back. Neither have been given a sniff, yet the team that they both outperformed last season are feted for no obviously apparent reason.
Am I alone in finding them a bit irking already? I think that I'm starting to understand Burnley fans, who seem to dislike us for similar reasons. I have argued that the media liking Potter's football more than Dyche's is outside of our control, but yet when the shoe is on the other foot, football's ability to form irrational prejudices and snap dislikes already find me hoping that tonight, to paraphrase Attila: "Arsenal, midst fevered expectation. Those Highbury gods (tear them) to shreds".
I've watched and read quite a lot of season previews and the received wisdom seems to be that Norwich haven't changed at all and will go back down, that Watford's squad isn't good enough and that they will join them, but that Brentford are going may find the top league a breeze and become the next Leeds/Sheffield United/Wolves, untroubled by a relegation scrap all season.
Now this may turn out to be the case, but i'm finding it hard to understand what has prompted this view. Brentford are a well run club who play some good football, just like Norwich. The story of the promotion to the top league after so many years has a bit of romance about it, like when Bournemouth and Brighton joined. However, they didn't walk the Championship like Wolves and Leeds did. They went up through the play offs. Based on previous years, this already makes them one of the prime candidates to get relegated. They also conceded more goals than the other two promoted sides last year, letting in 42 compared with Norwich's 36 and Watford's 30. Of the last 15 promoted teams, the only survivors who conceded more goals in their promotion season were Huddersfield and Aston Villa.
I know that it's not Brentford's fault that pundits are getting over excited about them, but it just seems like there is a different attitude to them than there was to most other relatively small teams who got promoted to the top division for the first time in the Premier League era and this has got me irritated with them already. I seem to remember that the likes of Bournemouth, us and Huddersfield were all given absolutely no chance of surviving in our first season. Now it could be that the fact that we all did has been a learning experience for pundits, but I just get the impression that they are all just desperately hoping for one of the three to be the 2021/22 version of Leeds and have picked Brentford because they aren't old news. Norwich are better than they were when they finished 20th. Watford under-performed their xp considerably to get relegated in 2020 and have bounced straight back. Neither have been given a sniff, yet the team that they both outperformed last season are feted for no obviously apparent reason.
Am I alone in finding them a bit irking already? I think that I'm starting to understand Burnley fans, who seem to dislike us for similar reasons. I have argued that the media liking Potter's football more than Dyche's is outside of our control, but yet when the shoe is on the other foot, football's ability to form irrational prejudices and snap dislikes already find me hoping that tonight, to paraphrase Attila: "Arsenal, midst fevered expectation. Those Highbury gods (tear them) to shreds".
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