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Ok, so now you get the picture. A few weeks back, I drew comparison between the wait for the new football season and a child starting on a journey to their dream Disneyland holiday. From the onset, there have been many times when boredom and impatience have driven the question, are we nearly there yet? There have been a few distractions thrown our way but generally, nothing has been able to fully remove the wish to reach the destination. The events of the last few days, mainly yesterday Friday 27th June 2014, have ramped the excitement up. It’s like we are finally seeing some of the new attractions we will be enjoying.

Are We Nearly There Yet Pt 7 told how much I hate puzzles but, unfortunately, they are addictive. Really addictive. Despite my best efforts, I was drawn in like a hopeless junkie when Matthew Benham posted a link to Youtube on Twitter, having declared the club should be able to announce a couple more signings. Although, I had yet to successfully complete one of these puzzles, I’ve never been more certain about anything in my life after viewing this one. Then again, I was clearly in some altered state of consciousness these intoxicating clues bring on. The three minute clip showed Billy Bob Thornton in the TV drama, Fargo. I’d seen the first three or so episodes before that impatience kicked in and I decided against investing the time to keep up with it. I had seen enough of it to realise that Martin FREEMAN played the other lead role.

After the detailed explanation I gave on my failure to correctly establish who MT was in MB’s earlier tease of the week, I felt compelled to go the whole way and again reply to the tweet, this time with the correct answer. One of the many names bandied about as a potential Bees target had been Stevenage’s fleet-footed Luke FREEMAN. I realised he’d only recently signed a new contract for Graham Westley but this was always a transfer fee insurance policy for the club rather than building their assault on league Two around him. My answer didn’t have to be flash. “@matthew_benham: Fargo… Martin FREEMAN… Luke Freeman”… and tweet.

For a while I felt bad. It had been six minutes since the clue had been posted. I feared I was ruining the fun for others including our owner. I sometimes think he enjoys reading some of the more ridiculous suggestions whereas other times I think he shakes his head in disbelief at the stupidity. Other names came after mine. Clearly Freeman, Luke not Martin, was in his car (or his agent’s) driving to Brentford. This was lunchtime and I was at work so I tried to go back to my desk and forget about it. I wouldn’t say I was completely underwhelmed but I was thinking back to the last game of last season. Freeman stood out as having some nice touches but not really any end product. On that showing he’d been Harry Forrester on a bad day.

The afternoon slowly passed and on the way home I started my daily Twitter feed feeding session. Fully expecting to see a notification of a reply to my Freeman tweet from @MB, I realised he’s obviously a busy man and doesn’t necessitate spending as long battling social media addiction as some of us. Without it, I thought I’ll just catchup on the usual important World News from the likes of @beesotted. I then stopped in my tracks on reading Luke Freeman had just signed for BR… He’d joined BR… At the time I posted my answer to the clue, he’d been in his car to BR… He’d only gone and been transferred to BRISTOL F***ING CITY.

I considered deleting my tweet, nobody had taken any notice of it anyway, but decided to spend that time considering who it might be instead. MB had since narrowed down the possibilities by declaring we were in for, “a winger and someone who can play across the front three”. While negotiations between McParland and Freeman’s people had obviously broken down after the video had been posted, it looked like a replacement had been found. He’d better be good.

Over the course of the evening, two names started shouting louder and louder through the many Chinese Whispers social media delivers. Moses Odubajo from Leyton Orient and Andre Gray from Luton Town. Wow.

Odubajo, from what I’ve seen, is Harry Forrester on a good day with a fire up his arse and consistent end product. If we paid a million pounds for him then Peterborough’s owner is right, we have got ourselves a bargain. Youth and Tekkers seem to be high up on our required attributes list these days. While there’s the saying some players put bums on seats, increasing attendances, Moses is the kind of player to remove bums from seats as everyone stands up and collectively yells, “go on my son”. Even Push Up Man will be silenced when the ball is at his feet.

Then we have Andre Gray. Yes, it was “only” the Conference but this fella looks like, in the right system, he could score goals anywhere. Three years or so older than Moses, he will still see out the whole of this decade in his twenties. This is someone who will in all likelihood get better and better with the quality of coaching from the Jersey Road Boys. He’s signed for three, not Four, Seasons although, Let’s Hang On, he’ll be Beggin’ to Stay longer.*

It was actually quite a busy day in the transfer market even forgetting Manchester United spending £27million on a left back a couple of years younger than Jake Bidwell. Another one of the players we’ve been linked with typed in the wrong place into his SatNav, Tarky’s old team mate at Oldham, Korey Smith, joining Freeman at Ashton Gate. Rotherham kept up their attempts to completely piss off the players who got then up by taking their number of new additions into double figures. In fact, here’s another analogy for you…

We’re eating out. We’ve chosen a high end restaurant as we wish to dine in class. In Marcos Tebar we’ve gone for an exquisite starter. Moses and Andre have been our expensive main course and we now just await a quality dessert. Meanwhile, across the road in Mr. Sloppy’s ‘Eat All You Can’, Steve Evans continues to fill his plate with whatever he can find. Quite an easy image to imagine, I imagine.

I’m at the stage now where I think the impatience of waiting for the new season may start to settle down. Warbo has mentioned he’d still like to add to the squad and you know that again, whether on loan, or taking this season’s Peterborough approved strategy of BUYING quality players, they will be more than decent. The players are actually off to Florida themselves soon to start pre-season training and this is where we are closer to the start of the new season than the end of the last. Are we nearly there yet? Not quite, but it’s getting ever closer.

One last mention to another piece of news which may have found itself buried under the announcements of Moses and Andre and the extended, improved deals for Stuart Dallas and David Button. The fixture I, and I’m sure many others, am most looking forward to, Fulham away, has been switched to Good Friday and a 7.45 floodlight kick off. Do you remember last Good Friday? Chances are you might not as by the end of it you might have consumed rather a lot of alcohol. You’ve probably seen the pictures though.

This Brentford set up is geared to keep progressing. Sensible, steady, controlled progression. What with promotion out of that league after such a long wait accomplished at Griffin Park, the team are going to have to go some to improve on last Good Friday. While I’d be tempted to bring back Roger Stanislaus to let fly from thirty yards, or Gary Blissett just to deck the annoying Fulham keeper again, let’s see what this current crop of talented players can serve up. Will they be able to make this an Even Better Friday than the Very Good Friday we saw just two and a half months ago? I think they just might. Ah man, are we nearly there yet?

Luis Adriano