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The Beesoted trio Condorman, Laney and BillytheBee were busy on duty at Griffin Park Saturday selling fanzines, entertaining Philippinos, getting policemen to sing “Come on you Brentford” and tweeting and getting your views on the game. And it’s another three points to stretch Brentford’s unbeaten league run to nine league games.

Brentford continued their habit of scoring late to snatch three points from a resilient Oldham side.

Many Bees fans were interested to see how Warburton set up his first XI – the message was loud and clear, it’s business as usual.

Fit again Jonathan Douglas returned to the team whilst Will Grigg was chosen ahead of Marcello Trotta at the knife’s edge up front. The main surprise was Kevin O’Connor’s return to the bench ahead of Diagouraga.

The game itself was pretty awful with a strong wind blowing from behind the Ealing Road. It became apparent early on that Oldham were content to niggle and wind down the clock – although the visitors work rate had to be admired.

It was also clear that we had been dealt another inconsistent ref when Harlee Dean was booked early on whilst a catalogue of fouls by Oldham’s midfielder Wesolowki were overlooked. Eventually he did foul enough to get booked, to the delight of the home crowd.

The best attack of the first half fell to Oldham who somehow broke with a 5 players to 1 advantage. Fortunately – Tony Craig kept a cool head and came away with the ball. Excellent defending from the experienced centre back.

Brentford’s best attacking endeavour came through McCormack who drove forward consistently on the right. Saville and Forshaw dominated the midfield with some canny movement and passing but our front three lacked penetration.

After the break, The Bees seemed to tire until Sam Saunders replaced the quiet Harris. Saunders put in a superb cameo performance, zipping around the pitch and passing with guile.

Oldham, however, started to have the better of the play, taking advantage of some sloppy Brentford possession. Douglas put in a fairly necessary “professional tackle” on the edge of the box and received only a yellow whilst Button made one superb save.

Brentford looked to have been denied a late goal chance when Donaldson was felled in the box but the referee waved play on. It did look like a foul but Clayton had arguably played the ball to far in front of himself.

Fortunately Oldham’s timewasting – evident throughout – was ultimately punished in the 92nd minute when Saunders crossed from the right and Douglas nodded home at the far post. Touché.

So it’s a winning start for Warburton with the three points looking extremely valuable as other teams around us failed to win. Brentford move ahead of PNE to go 3rd in League One.

The performance wasn’t great, but the result was – and that’s ultimately what matters for a team seeking promotion this season. Eight wins and one draw in our last nine league matches tells a story. A point at high flying Preston will keep us on track as we go into a really tough Xmas run which could well define our season.

Just a quick footnote regarding the singing in the video attached. Beesotted will be having a launch party for the “Come on You Brentford” single in a pub in the Brentford area immediately following the Franchise FC (aka MK Dons) game on Sun 29th Dec. According To You will be playing live. Put it in the diary.

Condorman
@condorman

Bees – Button, Bidwell, Craig, Dean, McCormack, Forshaw, Douglas, Saville (El Alagui), Harris (Saunders), Grigg (Trotta), Donaldson