Brentford may have lost Thomas Frank and three key players in the summer but confidence remains high within the club
Peering in from the outside, it felt like the transfer window when the Premier League’s “Big Six” struck back.
Some £3bn was spent and the majority of that was forked out by established top-flight heavyweights reasserting their dominance by cherry picking the best domestic talent.
Think Manchester United raiding Brentford and Wolves for Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha respectively, and Liverpool signing Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth. Even in the final hours of the window Newcastle snapped up Yoane Wissa for an eye-watering £55m.
So here is a new question to contemplate: can the so-called “smart” clubs who have punched above their weight through a combination of smart recruitment and cutting edge strategy continue to compete?
In West London the mood is relaxed. While plenty of Premier League clubs preach about seeing the bigger picture, Brentford actually follow it through.
They have a top-secret “alternative” league table that tracks performances rather than points totals and the message from that is that Keith Andrews has made a solid enough start to life as a top-flight manager.
BRENTFORD, ENGLAND - AUGUST 23: Keith Andrews, Manager of Brentford, celebrates victory with Nathan Collins of Brentford following the Premier League match between Brentford and Aston Villa at Gtech Community Stadium on August 23, 2025 in Brentford, England. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)
Keith Andrews was a popular appointment internally (Photo: Getty)
All the metrics point towards a team that is replicating the energy levels and work rate that they were showing under Thomas Frank last season. With so many new players settling in there’s a feeling they will get better.
The former Ireland midfielder was a shock choice to step up from set-piece coach back in June but it did not come out of the blue at Brentford.
The suspicion that Frank might be headhunted in the close season – the presence of his friend Johan Lange at Tottenham had not gone unnoticed – meant that the club were already considering what the future might look like.
And when Andrews got the nod, the early soundings from senior players and support staff during pre-season were almost overwhelmingly positive.
Brentford also did something different to assemble his support staff, conducting a wide-ranging search of the best and most innovative coaches in Europe.
They recently returned to the Ireland set-up to bring in highly-rated Stephen Rice as Andrews’ successor as set-piece coach – a key role at a club that actively target dead balls as an area in which they can get an “edge” over other sides.
It has been a steep learning curve for Andrews, though, with high-profile outgoings meaning he is hardly a continuity candidate.
But there’s little sense of crisis despite a bruising summer in which they lost Mbeumo and Wissa – their chief source of goals last season – along with talismanic manager Frank and influential captain Christian Norgaard.
“From the outside it looks like the heart of the team has been ripped out but actually, the squad is probably as strong as it’s ever been in the club’s history,” an insider tells The i Paper.
Perhaps few have noticed it but for every departure there has been a replacement of equivalent or even greater ability. There’s particular satisfaction at Brentford utilising their excellent relationship with Premier League champions to sign Caoimhin Kelleher to plug the gap left by Mark Flekken, while the Anfield connection was also utilised to recruit England midfielder Jordan Henderson from Ajax to replace Norgaard.
Record £42.5m signing Dango Ouattara has potentially a higher level, long-term, than Mbeumo and has made a flying start to life under Andrews.
They opted to sell Wissa on deadline day despite not sourcing a like-for-like replacement in this window but with Igor Thiago back from injury, there’s a belief that they have enough going forward to mitigate the striker’s departure. The money on offer from Newcastle could prove transformative in future transfer windows.
The reason for optimism about the squad is that, with players back from injury, the strength-in-depth is greater than ever before.
Aaron Hickey’s return from a long-term issue, along with Rico Henry, was supplemented by the season-long loan of Reiss Nelson to offer competition on the left.
The enthusiasm is underscored by a practical plan to steady the ship – namely a laser-like focus on improving the club’s ‘defensive structure’.
That was one of the targets even before Brentford’s summer of change. While Frank’s attacking style was easy on the eye and helped the club demand big fees for Mbeumo and Wissa, internal research indicated that they were conceding too many chances.
With the team in transition it felt like a “no brainer” to concentrate efforts on getting Brentford’s “defensive basics” right before improving the team’s attacking side. After a nightmare start against Nottingham Forest, Brentford won ugly in back-to-back games.
A trip to Sunderland brought another defeat but the view internally was that the match was a “coin toss” that was decided by tight margins. A tougher test of their defensive outlook awaits on Saturday night against free-scoring Chelsea.
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As you’d expect from a club not afraid of embracing risk, Brentford are drawing positives from a summer when they’ve ended up as one of the division’s net sellers.
With fresh investment and almost “limitless” headroom under the league’s profit and sustainability rules there is the opportunity to reset the team and potentially spend big in future transfer windows.
Insiders see parallels with the 2019 summer when Brentford – who had established themselves as a mid to upper-table Championship club – moved themselves up a level with signings like David Raya, Mbeumo and Norgaard.
There was the opportunity to bring in further players late in the window but Brentford opted against it. They will “take a view” in January, most likely informed by performances rather than league position. But the plan is clear: “Take a bit of a risk and grow”.
Having proven in recent years that anything is possible with the right vision, we should all be hoping that Brentford’s big reset brings them further success.