‘GOING to Brentford? You want your heads testing’ were the words greeting us in the local newsagents on Saturday morning.

On a damp, dark morning, it was hard to disagree as we faced a 400-mile round trip to watch our beloved Wanderers, whose current success is rated in terms of a shot on target.

Nonetheless, after two weeks leave of absence, there was optimism in the air on my part, mainly based on the fact all bad runs must come to an end sometime and a chance to complete the famous Brentford four corners challenge before they move to their new ground in August 2020.

As usual we were packed into the Brook Road Upper Stand, affectionately known as the Wendy House by the locals, where legroom is at a premium even for the vertically-challenged like me.

As expected, Sammy Ameobi was back after suspension but surprisingly there was no place for Josh Vela.

The match lived down to expectations as two struggling teams battled it out.

The crowd had more saves to make than either goalkeeper and the match was decided by the one moment of quality from their top scorer Neal Maupay.

From then on, we had a mountain to climb and the result looked inevitable. Our best chance came from goalkeeper Ben Alnwick’s header as he tried to show the rest of the team what to do.

This result leaves us in the bottom two at Christmas and it is difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Something must change as the stats are piling up horrifically; one win in 19 matches, 12 of those matches without scoring.

We do not lose by much as we set our stall out to defend, but lose we do.

Any quality in the team does not cross the halfway line.

Arguably, we have a better squad of players than last season, but they are not showing it.

The January transfer window looks likely to be one-way as money has to be found for Christian Doidge.

Most of the incoming players in the last two windows have failed to establish themselves anyway.

Off the field we are no nearer a solution, although I heard the police are looking at an incident in the Leeds match when a £1 coin was thrown onto the pitch.

They are not sure if it was a missile or a takeover bid!

Reasons to be cheerful? Not this Christmas.