Another very solid month for you, particularly that win against Man U - superb.
A memorable result against United! Another step taken to avoiding the drop at the end of the season. Every point matters.
In a relegation spot after four matches, and six matches later you're challenging for a top six spot. Very good stuff!
Brilliant victory over United. You have built an incredible squad in a very short amount of time. Need to stay focused now as you look to push that top 7!
you'll be competing with the Toffees for the title of overachiever of the year. What a start
A Swarm Of Bees - London Calling (EP 17)

Brentford is performing more than well in their first flight season for over a 70 years as they are sitting in the 8th place with 16 points from 10 matches. The busy schedule in the Premier League is only starting so we need to be fully focused and not to fool ourselves over a couple of nice results. This month schedule is tough with playing against Arsenal & Tottenham. We start with two injuries - Alfa Semedo, who will miss the whole month and Eliasson, who can probably return in the last match.
All month will be LONDON DERBIES, but we start with a local derby versus QPR, who took seven goals last time we met.
Brentford vs. QPR

Didn't score 7 this time, but we are more than happy with that result. Two fast goals in the first half as the BMW returned to our attack and again didn't disappoint! Ollie Watkins scoring in a consecutive match and Mbeumo with 1 goal, 1 assist & POTM display! We dominated through the whole game and could have scored more but this is more than enough. Also beating our main rival (as Fulham are not in this division) for the third time, scoring 13 goals in these 3 matches. Pontus will miss the next match with an injury, nothing serious. Kings of West London, baby!
Arsenal vs. Brentford

OH MY! Another upset and this time away from home! Vintage display by our defenders as we keep a clean sheet! Josh Dasilva (POTM) gave us the win with great long range goal, with Mbeumo providing him with an assist after he dribbled around two of Arsenal defenders! After the goal we had only one more chance and we defending for the rest of the game. Absolutely great result! With these kind of matches the fans believe we can fight for some place in the top half, however it's too early for this thoughts. So, Kings of North-West London maybe!
Brentford vs. Tottenham

When we scored first with only 14 minutes played, I thought that it will be unbelievable to pull a win against Spurs, just after beating Arsenal. This time, even though that Spurs didn't attack us as much as Arsenal last match our defense didn't succeed and we allowed one goal, masterpiece by Correa who slalomed between our defenders in the first minutes of the second half. Before that Mathias Jensen gave us the lead with also very nice goal from the edge of the box. Another great display and we're 9 matches without loosing! Nobody believed that will actually happen as we were predicted to be relegated. Of course this can still happen but wow, what a run!
Bryan Mbeumo who performed really well in the last couple of matches is injured for 6 weeks, just before the Christmas busy program.
Crystal Palace vs. Brentford

Cold shower! Actually we didn't deserve to lose with such a score, however 2 set pieces goals and 1 individual mistake by Pontus make the final score awful for us. We had some chances, but nothing more. We showed nothing compared to our performances in the past two months, don't know what happened. One of those matches, I guess. Not the best ending of a really good month. Hope that is just a bump on the road and not turning point for a series of loses.
Player of the Month

BRYAN MBEUMO
Doesn't matter if it's Championship or Premier League, Mbeumo is top player and it's playing really well! He finishes the month with 1 goal and 2 assist! With the constant changes in our attacking trio, Bryan is finding new role in playing on both wings when needed. Unfortunately for us before the last game of the month the Frenchman was injured in a training and will miss 6 weeks in the worst period of time.
Ollie Watkins is continuing his good performances, Jensen & Dasilva are
really good duo in the midfield and our defense is still impressing!
LEAGUE TABLE & VERDICT

We're moving up in the table for another month and found ourselves in the 6th place, just under another overachievers and our rivals - Watford! We managed to make a great run of 9 games without loosing before falling apart against Palace! Absolutely terrific performance and I'm really happy that we kept our style of attacking football even though we moved in bigger league!
Liverpool is marching with big steps for their first title in 30+ years. On the other end again we see Leeds and QPR. Really glad that we're performing way better than them and not struggling for points, but the wheel can turn really fast.
In the squad I'm happy with almost everybody - Andersson is not showing the things he was brought (he played awfully against Palace), Eliasson is always having some injuries (minor or not), Fross haven't scored in almost an year, even though he gets only a couple of minutes and I really want Alexander Isak to show his quality constantly not just in some of the games.
Next month is pretty busy, having 6 matches and there isn't a single easy one. We must try not to lose our momentum and continue with the great form.

Before continuing with December matches, the next episode will be focused on the performance of Bulgaria in the Nations League, where we are in a really tough group with Russia, Norway and Romania!
Thanks for reading once again & hope you enjoy it.
COMMENTS:
Jack - Surely you fancied the win over United, right

ScottT - Great win, also making steps towards something more than relegation battle.
Griffo - Infact, they aren't. I get some nice comments, but nothing too special, even though we took Brentford to their best season and now we play really nice in the PL. Strange things, there are rumors for a takeover, we will see what happens.
Zed - Yep, top six is dreamland, I'm almost sure that we can't keep up with the same pace through the whole year, but nothing wrong in trying to do it.
TheLFCFan - The squad is really good, with one or two signings in the right places we will have really balanced squad.
Tango - Now, it's Watford who stays on our way of overachievers.
Certainly some impressive results once again to lift Brentford even further up the table. It has been a magnificent start and far better than what we all could have expected.
Still going strong there, hope the form continues! P.S. that away kit Mbeumo is wearing is pure class!
Things get better and better here with a win at Arsenal and a point at Spurs. The performance, despite maybe not being as bad as the scoreline suggests, is a slight worry and hopefully can be avoided going forward.
A Swarm Of Bees - Nations League 2020 (EP 18)
Trying to survive.

After the big disappointment in the Euro 2020, we had the chance to gain our confidence back in the second edition of the Nations League. It's was a really good idea to scrap the friendly matches and introduce this new tournament so all the teams that are not in the power houses of Europe to have additional chance to qualify for a big forum. Although we didn't perform well at the Euros, the fans were delighted that their team once more were among the finalist of the tournament so not everybody was mad at us.
Bulgaria went up from League C to League B after winning his group last time, so we will be the team with the lowest rating in our Group. The local football association want us to battle against relegation. We have the toughest group facing the teams of Russia, Norway and Romania.
A lot of the "old dogs" that were part of the team in the last ten years were informed that they won't be needed anymore and we will try to develop more and more younger players and give them chance in the first team.
It was a good summer for a lot of the Bulgarian talents and some of them got good transfers which of course will contribute to the strength of the team. For the past year:
- Anton Nedyalkov was bought by Brighton and it's playing regularly at he left wingback.
- Stanislav Ivanov (AMR) & Valentin Antov (CB) were picked by Watford for €6M each, but have played only a couple of matches for the team.
- Martin Minchev (AML) was transfered in Lyon for €1M last year, didn't played at all and now is playing on loan for Troyes in League 1.
- Daniel Naumov (GK) got his big transfer in Sevilla but he is a second choice keeper.
- Kiril Despodov (AML/AMR) returned from loan to Cagliari and he is playing in every match this season.
We will try also a lot of new players that didn't have the chance to play for the national team and if they impress us, they can keep their spot.
Russia vs. Bulgaria

Ooookay, we tried to play attacking football again (as with Germany at the EUROs) and it's not our thing. Totally trashed. Russia got great squad but we should do a lot better. After this match we had a meeting with the group and told them this must not happen again or we are going to be called national traitors.
In the other match Norway beat Romania 2-1.
We had to do something so from this day forward we changed our 4-2-3-1 scheme with a lot of different variations of formations with 3 centre backs. Also we won't try to play, but rather we will destroy our opponents game and try to counter. Mine ideas for attacking free flowing football (as we play with Brentford) can't happen here.
Bulgaria vs. Norway

That's more like it! We converted into 3-4-3 counter-attacking formation against the full of brilliant wonderkids Norway and got quite a result! Our first win for 2020! Our box-to-box midfielder Simeon Slavchev put on a show to remember, scoring great long range goal, bossing the midfield and hitting twice the bar (POTM performance)! We were the better team in this match and deserved to win although they have the better players! Haaland, Joshua King & Odegaard were found in the pockets of our 3 central defenders!
Russia beat Romania 1-0.
There is a growing problem in the squad - our best players are wingers, but I want to play formation without using wingers so I try to play the wider players out of positions and I don't think that the players are fond of this, neither they play well individually, but they play better as a team in these kind of formations.
Romania vs. Bulgaria

Absolutely didn't deserved to lose this match as our goalkeeper Plamen Iliev made huge mistake for their second goal and this cost him his spot in the starting XI from the next match. The match was just made for us. With only a couple of chances, we managed to even the game with a header from Bozhidar Kraev. We could have scored another in the end of the game but our strikers obviously forgot how to score goals.
Norway - Russia 1:0
So basically after the first three matches Russia got 6 points, Norway - 6 pts., Romania with 3 pts. and Bulgaria also with 3. Anything can happen! We can finish first or last, nobody knows! Of course our groups was the most competitive, but we want a challenge!
Norway vs. Bulgaria

We went to get a point and almost got it, but this freak Haaland destroyed our hopes with a goal in the final minute of the game! Devastated! Once again we merit the play of the other team, but the score is not what we want! This time we played a lot more defensively (5 at the back) and Todor Nedelev (as AMC) played really well, not only he scored really nice goal, but made work a lot of work for the Norwegian defenders. Sadly, all the luck we had in the Euro Qualifications last year is turning back on us now and in the Euro 2020.
Russia - Romania 2-1.
This means we will have to beat Romania at home to survive.
Bulgaria vs. Russia

But we first to play Russia at home and BOOM, we win it with the final kick of the ball! The whole team put a great performance in the pouring rain to get another sweet memory of the nation! The goal was absolute beauty, however all the players deserved this for their great effort and to avenge the score from the last match against Russia! Malinov (POTM) & Slavchev were the best players for us as we again played 3-4-3. All the people in the stadium - fans, footballers, coaches, reporters were sure that the win meant we are almost staying in the same division and then we heard it on the audio system:
Romania - Norway 3:2
We can't believe it, not just because Romania have won. They were loosing 0-2 at halftime. Another punch we get from the football gods. So this means we need to beat them to avoid relegation, win and only win is okay for us.
Bulgaria vs. Romania

Mmm yeah, the moment I saw that Romania turned the result against Norway, I knew we are in deep shit. The match was a copy of the first match - even game, without so many chances for both teams. The young winger Minchev scored to even the result and then came the last minute of the game. One of most experienced players in our team Dimitar Iliev went one on one versus they keeper aaaand he puts it wide. Awful. Romania celebrates their survival at the heart of the capital of Bulgaria and our supporters will have to swallow another bitter result and we are going again to League C in the Nations League.
FInal Standings & Verdict![]()

The worst thing is that we are relegated with 7 points, loosing only because of the direct lost against Romania. Another thing is that we would have stayed up in 3 of the 4 groups in League B with these points, of course only not in ours. We had no luck at all loosing in the last minute, loosing games in which we are better and everything was against us, everything.
Best players for this tournament were Simeon Slavchev, Malinov and Todor Nedelev!
Fun Fact: All the matches in our group (except our loss versus Russia) were decided by just a goal. So imagine how close was that group.
On the good side was that we introduced a lot of young talents into the squad and started using a lot of the younger players more often. Our results were a lot better than the first half of the year, but we need to forget 2020 fast and turn our head to the next qualifications. We need to find a real goalscorer, someone who can finish our attacks, because not a single goal was scored by our striker. We even tried to play Despodov upfront, but it's not the thing for him.
Thanks for reading once again & hope you enjoy it.
COMMENTS:
Griffo - Hope we can maintain our form.
ScottT - Never expected such a start, I though we can get an upset or two, but for now we are performing really well.
Zed - Actually, that's Brentford's thrid kit, the away kit is also very nice (all black).
TheLFCFan - Yes, we must try to eliminate such game as this versus Palace, but sometimes the luck is against you.
being relegated with 7 points is frustrating, but at least is a show that you can get back up without problems
and have a shortcut to the Euro 2024
and have a shortcut to the Euro 2024
Gutting that! I think of results against Romania with Iliev's mistake and then Haalands last minute goal which saw two points turn to none. Either way you fought hard and have found some talent that could make the difference in the future.
A bitter way to crash out and ultimately be relegated but I have a good feeling that Bulgaria will be back sooner rather than later. The relegation could be a blessing in disguise as it may allow you to come back stronger with more structure.
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