The Guest Blog – Volume VIII

So, the countdown is on for Brentford away, and the reunion with Will Grigg.

Normally, I don`t think booing and barracking a former player during a match does anybody any good but in the case of Grigg I`ll make an exception, and not just because he`s a?ahem?sideways mover.

As we`ve seen with young William, he does have a tendency to let the crowd get on his back and affect his performances. It`s a situation which resulted in Brentford`s International Superstar celebrating his goals in front of empty seats wherever possible last year, such was the disdain he seemed to hold for Saddlers fans. So I guess it was hardly surprising when he accepted a contract, for a year less than we`d offered, with anyone but us back in July.

It does however mean we know that if we sing our ‘tributes` to him loud and proud on Saturday, and it`s accompanied by an early Andy Butler tackle or two, the prolific marksman will probably fade into obscurity for the rest of the game and will result in him spending the rest of the season dreading playing us again.

Talking of dreading playing us, it brings me to on to the Johnstone`s Paint Trophy draw, and our impending double header at The Wembley of the Black Country against the massive club from down the road.

Were it not for it being a World Cup qualifying weekend we`d now be playing them twice in 4 days but, having already attempted to cry off from the league fixture because they feel they need their array of international talent to beat us, it now seems likely they`ll attempt the same trick with the cup game. Three days since the draw was made and still no news on when the match will be played, allocations, or ticket prices/allocations suggest all is not straightforward. Potentially (and this scenario at the minute exists nowhere other than in my head so treat it with the massive pinch of salt it deserves) it could throw into doubt the 17th September for the league game if the FA deem the JPT game more important. The 24th September is League Cup 3rd Round Tuesday, which we could still be involved in, and the 8th October is the 2nd Round of the JPT. It could leave the 17th September and the 1st October being the dates of both fixtures, in either order (police approval depending). Of course, everything I`ve written could be complete nonsense, but either way it may be worth not making any concrete plans for either fixture as yet.

Moving on, and it seems likely we are going to sign former Chelsea full back Sam Bangura. I must admit, until this morning I`d never heard of him. But if he`s a right back who can stop crosses coming in from the left wing then he`s worth having, as we were so hopeless at that on Saturday against Notts County.

Another thing that was hopeless against Notts County were the BBC`s highlights of the game on The Football League Show on Saturday night. I watched it naively assuming that, given we were 3rd in the league going into the game, and got away with one both when James Chambers cleared the ball from suspiciously close to the other side of the goal line, and a 92nd minute disallowed winner for County, that Auntie Beeb may have cared to show these incidents, but it was like they never happened.

Still, at least they didn`t show Troy Hewitt`s shot either.

@adamguestwfc