Is there a team at Brentford yet?

I`m afraid I haven`t been able to get too excited about the recently-started football League season - too much sport, the Royal celebrations, the fact that it seems there just hasn`t been a summer break from football thanks to the money-grabbing of various TV channels.

It`s not just football, the Paralympics has highlighted that forgotten word 'sportsmanship` in top sport - just look at the respect each and every Paralympian (apart from that South African fella) shows to his/her opponent. I just wish that still existed in pro football.

The lack of excitement, however, doesn`t mean a complete lack of interest. And that`s why I`m starting to look forward to this Saturday`s game against Colchester. It`ll give me a chance to take a cold look at the 'new` Bees to see if there`s a team there yet.

For a variety of reasons I`ve only been able to get to one game so far, but that was the 5-1 thrashing of Crewe and I read afterwards how brilliant we were. My own view was that there were at least five of our players below par - three of them newcomers who I didn`t think were anywhere near as good as last year`s mob. Apart from one of them, everyone else raved about how great and effective they were - surprisingly, a cry that soon changed after the Walsall game.

I wondered if I was wrong. So I want to see for myself how Uwe has managed to build up the new Championship-aiming Bees. Last year he seemed to be getting there with some slick, quick passing - against Crewe there seemed to be an awful lot of long balls played forward with hope.

Despite that, I thought we had some clever`ish players, even though there was a crying need for a midfield, and the defence needs to gel pretty quick. I wondered, too, how even after scoring five goals how many more our front two would have got if they`d had a decent supply of passes.

I know the current idea seems to be that those passes will come from the wings on our newly-widened pitch, but apparently we don`t need wingers (why sign Dallas?) but instead have full-backs pelting down the wings and sending in those crosses. But that`s hit and miss - a good through ball for an on-rushing forward will win almost every time.

Incidentally, we are told, too, that we fail because players make the wrong choices - but that they don`t do what they are told to do by the manager. One of those statements must be wrong - so who plays the game? The man on the touchline with the ideas - or the guys on the field actually doing the job?

I know this all makes me sound like a sour old man - I probably am. But I want the team to play with style and panache, quick one-touch passing movements, everyone running into space for the others. In my one match that seemed as far off as ever - so I`m looking to this Saturday to see if I`m wrong, or if there really is a problem.

Is it me? I`ll be interested to hear what other people think.

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