By Red Army
August 18 2020

Brentford 1 – 2 Barnsley

I apologise to my two readers for the delay in writing this. It is fair to say the celebrations took me over after such a dramatic win at Brentford.

When I finally sobered up I had a feeling that I’d celebrated too soon and that Wigan would somehow find a COVID loophole to escape their 12 point deduction.

At that point I decided not to write anything until the outcome of their appeal. By the time our Championship safety had been confirmed I decided too much time had elapsed to write about it.

However when I look at the website and see that this game is missing and that there has been no acknowledgement of our survival I decided something should be written.

As for the game itself, I can hardly remember a thing about it. Perhaps it was the nerves on the night or the amount I have drank in celebration afterwards after not drinking for so long during lockdown.

What I do remember is that the work rate from the lads was unbelievable and in my opinion we fully deserved the victory.

And even though we stayed up on a technicality I believe our post lockdown form showed we are good enough for the Championship next season. Imagine how good we would have been if the manager had played players in their proper positions. Whereas Wigan will inevitably have to offload their players and would have almost certainly have finished bottom the Championship next season.

Some of our young players can only get better next season but I still feel that we need a couple of experienced heads if we are to avoid being towards the bottom of the table again. And of course we need to keep the majority of our first team squad together.

We’ve sold McGeehan and loaned out Sibbick but it was clear that Struber didn’t fancy them at all. I do hope however that Sibbick can come back the following season and make an impact on the squad. He’s a young lad who has potential and has showed his versatility by playing in a number of positions in so few games for the reds.

In has come Ludewig on a season long loan. I am one of the minority of fans that I have spoken to who doesn’t see what the fuss is with this lad. If someone could please enlighten me then please comment on this article.

Already the season is just around the corner so it will be interesting to see what business we can do and also how much other clubs are able to spend given the current climate.

Other clubs having to tighten their belts may help us in the fact that they don’t come in for our players and they also can’t strengthen as much as usual so little clubs like us are playing on a more even field.

Only time will tell but next season promises to be intriguing at the very least.

COYR