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Ian Westbrook looks at Brentford’s last pre-Christmas visitors

HOW ARE THEY DOING?

Blackburn have not been in the best of form recently and have only won of their past five league games.

Before that they had won three in a row to follow a winless run of four games so inconsistency sums up their season so far.

Having said that, they have won eight and drawn seven of their 20 matches to sit seventh in the table.

Rovers are in their third consecutive season in the Championship following relegation in 2012 which ended an 11-year stay in the Premier League.

WHO’S THE GAFFER?

Gary Bowyer took charge of Blackburn permanently in May last year following two spells as caretaker-boss.

It is a first managerial job for the former Nottingham Forest full-back, son of ex-player Ian Bowyer, after spells coaching at Derby and with Blackburn’s youth team.

PREVIOUS VISIT

This will be Blackburn’s first visit to Griffin Park on League duty since October 1979 when we beat them 2-0.

However since then, they have played here three times in the League Cup in the days of two-legged ties in the early rounds.

The last occasion was in September 1996 when we lost 2-1 before a 2-0 second leg defeat at Ewood Park.

BEES CONNECTIONS

Look no further than prolific striker Jordan Rhodes who could have been scoring for fun in Brentford colours in different circumstances.

Joining on loan from Ipswich in the January 2009 transfer window he scored seven goals in 14 games, including a perfect right foot, left foot, header hat-trick at Shrewsbury before suffering against Chesterfield in March that ended his season prematurely.

His goals played in us winning the League Two title that season and we tried to get him back on loan for the following season.

However stories at the time said Ipswich boss Roy Keane said he only wanted a permanent deal and we couldn’t afford the fee.

So instead Jordan joined Huddersfield where he hit 87 goals in all competitions in 129 full and 19 substitute appearances to earn an ÂŁ8m move to Blackburn.

You can listen to Brentford fans from Beesotted, Griffin Park Grapevine, BIAS plus Blackburn fans from The Blackburn Wild Rover blog discuss all things football on this week’s Beesotted Pride of West London Podcast right here

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Also, check out Mikey Delap from Blackburn give us the lowdown on Rovers season, Lovejoy and Chumbawumba … plus a list of Brentford pubs to check out in the FanStand interview right here.