The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

By David Parsons (Expert Football writer at the-sports-buff.com)

Since clinching promotion from the English Championship via the play-off final with a 2-0 victory over Swansea City at the end of the 2020/21 season, Brentford have become a consistent and solid outfit in the ruthless and unforgiving environment of the Premier League, largely helped by the influence of former manager Thomas Frank.

However, the lure of cutting his teeth across the nation’s capital at Tottenham was irresistible for the Danish coach who had previously taken over the reins from Dean Smith at Brentford back in 2018 and had been instrumental in The Bees’ meteoric rise up the English pyramid, culminating in promotion to the domestic top flight.

Frank, who had overseen a total of 317 games as Brentford boss will now sit amongst the plush and luxurious surroundings of the multi-million pound Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as he embarks upon a new regime at the north London club for this season’s new Premier League campaign.

But what of Brentford’s chances now that the seven-year Danish reign has come to an end?

Much of Brentford’s success in recent years can be attributed to majority share-holder and principal owner, Matthew Benham, an entrepreneur who had built his empire upon data analytics in the betting world.

Benham has used a similar model to that of the analytics used in the movie Moneyball to scour the football world for suitable signings for Brentford within a tight and lean budget while enticing players whose return on investment in terms of playing potential outweighed the cost of purchase.

In recent seasons, players such as David Raya (Blackburn Rovers), Ivan Toney (Peterborough United) and Christian Norgaard (Fiorentina) were purchased at a mere snip at €12 million in total and further developed by Thomas Frank and his coaching team, then sold onto other clubs at a significant profit.

Indeed, the trio of Raya, Toney and Norgaard alone were sold for a combined total of €85.5 million, thus providing Brentford with a healthy profit margin of €73.5 million – and this is without the prospect of Bryan Mbeumo’s eventual transfer which is still ongoing at the time of writing!

Benham and Brentford’s wheeling and dealing attributes however may be needed more than ever as the newly appointed but untried at Premier League level manager, Keith Andrews, takes to the dug-out at the Gtech Community Stadium for the start of this new campaign.

Much-travelled as a player, Andrews plied his trade as Assistant Manager at MK Dons, Ireland U21’s, Ireland and Sheffield United respectively before joining The Bees as Technical Coach in July 2024 so he is familiar with how Brentford FC operate.

However, the prospect of losing undoubtedly his best player in the shape of Bryan Mbeumo will hang heavy on the Irish manager as he not only seeks to find his feet in the English top flight but also navigate the pressures associated with achieving results at this level.

In short, Keith Andrews has big shoes to fill after the departure of former coach Thomas Frank and Brentford fans will need to be patient, especially as The Bees’ opening game of this new Premier League season will be away from home at last season’s seventh placed side, Nottingham Forest.

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