Brentford v. Huddersfield Town

Andre Gray is Brentford's leading scorer with 13 goals, though he does seem to celebrate goal kicks, too.

Brentford are a team of fine footballers cobbled together, as so often they have been, by a collection of shrewd signings from around London and the appeal of gathering loans from other clubs not-so-very far away. The likes of Alex Pritchard - from Spurs - and Jon Toral - from Arsenal - illustrate the latter of those methods, while David Button had a million and one loans from Spurs, before moving to Charlton and eventually finding his home in West London. I'm a big fan of Richard Lee, personally, but I've been told his form had dropped off, so Button got his spot. Needless to say, I'll be keeping my eye on him.

If you want to look elsewhere during the game, you could do worse than direct your attention to the two benches. Not to the Battle of Bread between Mark Warburton and Lloyd Allinson but to the Bees' dugout which contains, for your wonderment and 'Man, he's changed' element the following ex-pros.

David Weir - venerable ex-centre-back of Everton, Rangers and Scotland.
Simon Royce - steady pair of gloves, ex of Gillingham and Southend Utd.
Lee Carsley - bald-headed midfielder who nearly got a big move once but didn't.

[Image: Simon+Royce+Gillingham+v+Rochdale+dzWWkHLi_N8l.jpg]

Unlike his current employers, Simon Royce had enjoyed playoff success in the past.

Of course, there's some very famous history between the two sides - notably, those two playoff meetings, both in semi-finals. In the one, Huddersfield were successful while in the other, Brentford were. There's not a lot more to add to that, really. You'll all remember the Alan Lee game that featured in the previous Brentford preview I wrote for the site and its true that over my lifetime watching Town, there are few teams who have offered positional rivalry as often as the Bees have. When Town have been going for something, Brentford have tended to be one of the teams in their way; I suspect the same is less true the other way around, as there was some big seasons with the Doncaster shenanigans and suchwhat down at Griffin Park.

Scoring against Wycombe? Rinse and repeat.

Jordan Rhodes is the go-to name of players who featured for both, but it is almost inconceivable that the Scot would have joined Town without his cameo loan spell with the Bees the season before. Getting his name out there, as a goal-scorer, away from Ipswich, would have alerted Town to his presence and the fact that he was available for transfer is one of the better moves of recent seasons. I remember him fondly in blue and white stripes - indeed, I remember him scoring once at Brentford for Town in a 0-4 victory that featured a Lee Novak lob of such beauty that it could appear on the ceiling of a church in Bologna.

I'll come back to this thread a little later on to update a bit more of managers and players - when the dust has settled from Saturday, so perhaps Sunday evening or Monday morning. For now, though...