Premier League 2021-22 preview No 3: Brentford
Punchy, front-foot style will be a welcome addition to the top flight and plenty of the team should take step up in their strideby Ben FisherTue 3 Aug 2021 00.01 BST
Guardian writers’ predicted position: 18th (NB: this is not necessarily Ben Fisher’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: 3rd in the Championship
Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker): 750-1
The plan
These are exciting times at Brentford. A couple of months on from Thomas Frank being ambushed by his players during his pitchside interviews at Wembley, and conducting his press conference with a towel draped over his shoulders, it is time for a club that outperformed heavyweight rivals in the Championship to put to the test in the biggest league in the world an intriguing theory built on smart thinking and shrewd recruitment.
How will they measure up? Everything points to Brentford being a welcome addition to the Premier League. They play a punchy, front-foot style, promote youngsters from a novel and budding B team, established after they scrapped their academy five years ago, and in Frank they have a box-office head coach. Before May’s play-off semi-final comeback victory against Bournemouth he embarked on a pre-match lap of the pitch to rev up the crowd and, last year, he got a ticking off from the English Football League for using drinks breaks to fine-tune tactics on a magnetic whiteboard.
Brentford have a core of players who seem destined to take the step up in their stride, from the goalkeeper David Raya to Rico Henry, a force from left-back, the classy Christian Norgaard, Vitaly Janelt, a defensive midfielder picked up from Bochum for £500,000, Bryan Mbeumo and, of course, Ivan Toney. For the first summer in a while, Brentford did not have to worry about losing their best players to predators. They have received no offers for their talisman Toney and instead have focused on strengthening in key areas.
