Speaking to my neighbour, a Brentford fan, after the game and he thinks the main reason they're so good this season is they signed Pinnock and Jansson. Shored them up at the back amazingly. Brentford have finished 9th - 11th the last few seasons so hardly trailblazing. Clean sheets and a good attack and bingo...10th to 3rd. What Im saying is, we're not necessarily 5 year behind but a couple of good signings can make all the difference. We can score goals and if we tightened up at the back, we might be really quite decent. He also rated Warburton highly. I think we need to be patient - at the start of the season we expected nothing and actually there have been moments of genuine quality and optimism this season. (I hated all the plums singing 'we're ****ing ****' at 3 - 1 down last week when we still had a bit of a chance)
Interesting you mention Pinnock, I remember seeing him about 7 years ago when he was with Dulwich Hamlet in the Ryman League First Division South, effectively the 8th tier, he was a standout player then and after two more seasons in the Ryman Premier as their Player-of-the-Year moved on to Forest Green. There are some quality players down the leagues, we just need scouting that finds them, anyone who saw Pinnock in any of those three seasons would have seen how good he was, remember Charlie Austin spent a fair time at Poole Town banging in goals all over the place before anyone took a chance on him...