THIS WEEK PROVED to be an ideal opportunity for Brentford head coach Keith Andrews to get his players and staff together and ask them exactly the same kind of questions that everyone else around the Premier League has been wondering.
How are Brentford doing what they’re doing?
Why are Brentford doing what they’re doing?
Rivals on the outside have, naturally, been trying to work them out.
“They work f***ing hard,” was one succinct summation from a high-ranking official on the technical side of a Premier League club. More than just that, it was explained how Andrews’ set up is “really clever” and that the recent 4-2 win away to Everton was an example of how they “killed” David Moyes’ side.
In possession, Brentford tactically outwitted the veteran boss by bringing their wide players in behind Everton’s midfielders once they had jumped from their shape. On top of that, Brentford dropped one of their midfielders in beside their centre back, drawing Everton out and creating space, further exposing Moyes’ defensive set-up.
The Brentford players’ discipline, organisation and understanding of the trigger points for pressing has also been highlighted by their rivals. Opponents know that playing a wide ball out in their own build-up is to be avoided, and that any misplaced or mistimed pass will also act as the trigger for increased pressure.
Understanding something and avoiding it are two different things, though.
One aspect that has caught the eye since Andrews made the step up from set-piece coach has been the distances his players maintain in their shape without the ball.
Rarely would there be more than 30 or 40 yards between their striker Igor Thiago and centre backs, and although they do not press really high, they keep an aggressive defensive line with the likes of Nathan Collins ready to jump in.
Caoimhín Kelleher’s presence has also been commented upon by opponents, the Ireland number one seen as a calm and commanding figure who gives his defenders more belief and trust in such an aggressive line, not to mention having a positive effect on the team as a whole.
It is for some of these reasons that ahead of today’s west London derby against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Brentford are fifth in the Premier League, three places above the club who currently hold the title of club world champions.
Brentford are two points clear of them in a congested table that could also see them leapfrog Liverpool into fourth place with a win, although Tottenham Hotspur are only six points back in 14th.
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This is the highest Brentford have ever been in the Premier League at this stage of the season, although if they earned as many points on the road as they have at home by this stage, they would actually be second in the table, a point behind Arsenal.
“If only it was that easy,” Andrews says with a smile.
It’s against this backdrop that he gathered those players and staff at the club’s training base – beneath the Heathrow Airport flight path – to reflect on the current state of affairs. It was a chance to reinforce the belief system that has led to this point.
“Hard work is the basis, a real humility and hunger to achieve and strive towards something. Training with a real purpose. Togetherness. A spirit about the way we work and the way we do things as a collective. They’ve been the main foundations,” he says.
It was at this point in conversation that it almost felt like Andrews witnessed a collective eye-roll among journalists in the room.
“Look, I’ve been involved in the professional game since 1996, I’m aware of the momentum swings. People think, ‘Oh, he’s using that word again, humility’, but you have to be because if you get carried away with yourself in any walk of life, you can quickly become stuck… this game can bite you pretty quickly.”
Speaking of which, Andrews also didn’t mind quickly admonishing an assertion from one journalist that his journey in football started while working as a pundit for Sky Sports.
“It didn’t start in a TV studio,” he said, smiling and perhaps biting his tongue to go a bit further.
Caoimhín Kelleher and Keith Andrews after a 3-2 win over the goalkeeper's former club, Liverpool, earlier this season. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
It has helped Andrews, of course, that Brentford just so happen to have the second-highest scorer in the division.
Thiago’s 16 goals – four behind Erling Haaland and six ahead of Antoine Semenyo – make him the highest-scoring Brazilian in a single Premier League season.
He now has a realistic ambition of making his country’s World Cup squad, another indication of how football’s tectonic plates have shifted so wildly, and how Brentford seem to be distorting things further.
Thiago and Andrews developed a strong personal relationship during the previous campaign, when the €35 million signing suffered a knee injury that resulted in just 160 minutes of action.
The Dubliner has since been promoted from set-piece coach to head coach, a title that somehow now seems to carry less control or respect in football generally.
Indeed, just this week, former England boss Gareth Southgate – Sir in these parts – took to LinkedIn to write about how “the erosion of a manager’s authority has been a gradual process over many years”.
Southgate cited how the “widespread introduction of football, technical, or sporting directors” has accelerated this, but insisted he has “no issue with this evolution” and that “strategy, culture, planning, and continuity are critical to success in any organisation – and a football club is no different”.
Brentford and Chelsea are two extreme examples of this change, and Andrews will be in the unique position today of standing in the opposite dugout to a head coach taking charge of his first Premier League game.
Perhaps it was apt that Southgate took to that social media-cum-business mecca account to air his views, as for some both Andrews and Liam Rosenior would also seem to embody a kind of LinkedInification of the game.
Such an assertion ignores one of the basic truths of the game, though. Players make their minds up about coaches and managers very quickly. “He’s lost the dressing room” is that most fateful of decrees that didn’t come out of nowhere. And how often have you heard that most brutal of putdowns – “the players aren’t having him” – when it comes to a boss out of his depth?
Andrews’ attitude, demeanour and personality – not to mention 10 years of coaching experience for clubs and country since retiring – prompted Brentford to turn to him to replace Thomas Frank last summer.
Performances and results have kept him in the job many assumed he would not last in this side of Christmas.
Keith Andrews with top scorer Igor Thiago. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
“Dynamics have clearly changed a lot… this club has been doing it a long, long time,” he said in relation to Brentford’s hierarchy. “[I] don’t know if it’s been perfected but it’s pretty good. Really streamlined. I can’t speak about other clubs because I haven’t been in those environments, but from what I hear about other clubs, at times, it can be trickier, it’s fair to say.
“My role and my title is head coach, but obviously you’re managing the situations day-to-day. I have a really clear idea of the way we work as a football club. I know where Gareth [Southgate] is coming from, clearly, and it can be very difficult for managers, head coaches, at times to deal with that, and I think we’ve seen some very public examples of that.”
Rosenior has got his opportunity at Chelsea because of Enzo Maresca’s acrimonious departure that highlighted those “changing dynamics”, not to mention being plucked from Strasbourg, the French club that sits within owners BlueCo’s multi-club model. That is a far more worrying aspect for the game’s future, while it is a quirk of this fixture that both head coaches in the mix for Champions League qualification also worked together previously as pundits for Sky’s coverage for the EFL.
“I don’t like traditional routes if I’m being honest. I’ve taken decisions in my career that haven’t been the done thing. I’ve walked away from one or two jobs because I didn’t feel it was right, when practically everybody told me to stay. People I trusted and who I value their opinions really, really highly. I’ve always gone on my gut on what I feel I should do.
“You’ve got to stick true to yourself, to your beliefs. You’ve got to forge your own path. My career [as a player] was snakes and ladders and eventually got to where I wanted.”
Today is the latest roll of the dice on that table that no longer feels like the gamble it once was.
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The secret to Brentford's Champions League dream? 'They work 'f***ing hard and are really clever'
THIS WEEK PROVED to be an ideal opportunity for Brentford head coach Keith Andrews to get his players and staff together and ask them exactly the same kind of questions that everyone else around the Premier League has been wondering.
How are Brentford doing what they’re doing?
Why are Brentford doing what they’re doing?
Rivals on the outside have, naturally, been trying to work them out.
“They work f***ing hard,” was one succinct summation from a high-ranking official on the technical side of a Premier League club. More than just that, it was explained how Andrews’ set up is “really clever” and that the recent 4-2 win away to Everton was an example of how they “killed” David Moyes’ side.
In possession, Brentford tactically outwitted the veteran boss by bringing their wide players in behind Everton’s midfielders once they had jumped from their shape. On top of that, Brentford dropped one of their midfielders in beside their centre back, drawing Everton out and creating space, further exposing Moyes’ defensive set-up.
The Brentford players’ discipline, organisation and understanding of the trigger points for pressing has also been highlighted by their rivals. Opponents know that playing a wide ball out in their own build-up is to be avoided, and that any misplaced or mistimed pass will also act as the trigger for increased pressure.
Understanding something and avoiding it are two different things, though.
One aspect that has caught the eye since Andrews made the step up from set-piece coach has been the distances his players maintain in their shape without the ball.
Rarely would there be more than 30 or 40 yards between their striker Igor Thiago and centre backs, and although they do not press really high, they keep an aggressive defensive line with the likes of Nathan Collins ready to jump in.
Caoimhín Kelleher’s presence has also been commented upon by opponents, the Ireland number one seen as a calm and commanding figure who gives his defenders more belief and trust in such an aggressive line, not to mention having a positive effect on the team as a whole.
It is for some of these reasons that ahead of today’s west London derby against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Brentford are fifth in the Premier League, three places above the club who currently hold the title of club world champions.
Brentford are two points clear of them in a congested table that could also see them leapfrog Liverpool into fourth place with a win, although Tottenham Hotspur are only six points back in 14th.
This is the highest Brentford have ever been in the Premier League at this stage of the season, although if they earned as many points on the road as they have at home by this stage, they would actually be second in the table, a point behind Arsenal.
“If only it was that easy,” Andrews says with a smile.
It’s against this backdrop that he gathered those players and staff at the club’s training base – beneath the Heathrow Airport flight path – to reflect on the current state of affairs. It was a chance to reinforce the belief system that has led to this point.
“Hard work is the basis, a real humility and hunger to achieve and strive towards something. Training with a real purpose. Togetherness. A spirit about the way we work and the way we do things as a collective. They’ve been the main foundations,” he says.
It was at this point in conversation that it almost felt like Andrews witnessed a collective eye-roll among journalists in the room.
“Look, I’ve been involved in the professional game since 1996, I’m aware of the momentum swings. People think, ‘Oh, he’s using that word again, humility’, but you have to be because if you get carried away with yourself in any walk of life, you can quickly become stuck… this game can bite you pretty quickly.”
Speaking of which, Andrews also didn’t mind quickly admonishing an assertion from one journalist that his journey in football started while working as a pundit for Sky Sports.
“It didn’t start in a TV studio,” he said, smiling and perhaps biting his tongue to go a bit further.
It has helped Andrews, of course, that Brentford just so happen to have the second-highest scorer in the division.
Thiago’s 16 goals – four behind Erling Haaland and six ahead of Antoine Semenyo – make him the highest-scoring Brazilian in a single Premier League season.
He now has a realistic ambition of making his country’s World Cup squad, another indication of how football’s tectonic plates have shifted so wildly, and how Brentford seem to be distorting things further.
Thiago and Andrews developed a strong personal relationship during the previous campaign, when the €35 million signing suffered a knee injury that resulted in just 160 minutes of action.
The Dubliner has since been promoted from set-piece coach to head coach, a title that somehow now seems to carry less control or respect in football generally.
Indeed, just this week, former England boss Gareth Southgate – Sir in these parts – took to LinkedIn to write about how “the erosion of a manager’s authority has been a gradual process over many years”.
Southgate cited how the “widespread introduction of football, technical, or sporting directors” has accelerated this, but insisted he has “no issue with this evolution” and that “strategy, culture, planning, and continuity are critical to success in any organisation – and a football club is no different”.
Brentford and Chelsea are two extreme examples of this change, and Andrews will be in the unique position today of standing in the opposite dugout to a head coach taking charge of his first Premier League game.
Perhaps it was apt that Southgate took to that social media-cum-business mecca account to air his views, as for some both Andrews and Liam Rosenior would also seem to embody a kind of LinkedInification of the game.
Such an assertion ignores one of the basic truths of the game, though. Players make their minds up about coaches and managers very quickly. “He’s lost the dressing room” is that most fateful of decrees that didn’t come out of nowhere. And how often have you heard that most brutal of putdowns – “the players aren’t having him” – when it comes to a boss out of his depth?
Andrews’ attitude, demeanour and personality – not to mention 10 years of coaching experience for clubs and country since retiring – prompted Brentford to turn to him to replace Thomas Frank last summer.
Performances and results have kept him in the job many assumed he would not last in this side of Christmas.
“Dynamics have clearly changed a lot… this club has been doing it a long, long time,” he said in relation to Brentford’s hierarchy. “[I] don’t know if it’s been perfected but it’s pretty good. Really streamlined. I can’t speak about other clubs because I haven’t been in those environments, but from what I hear about other clubs, at times, it can be trickier, it’s fair to say.
“My role and my title is head coach, but obviously you’re managing the situations day-to-day. I have a really clear idea of the way we work as a football club. I know where Gareth [Southgate] is coming from, clearly, and it can be very difficult for managers, head coaches, at times to deal with that, and I think we’ve seen some very public examples of that.”
Rosenior has got his opportunity at Chelsea because of Enzo Maresca’s acrimonious departure that highlighted those “changing dynamics”, not to mention being plucked from Strasbourg, the French club that sits within owners BlueCo’s multi-club model. That is a far more worrying aspect for the game’s future, while it is a quirk of this fixture that both head coaches in the mix for Champions League qualification also worked together previously as pundits for Sky’s coverage for the EFL.
“I don’t like traditional routes if I’m being honest. I’ve taken decisions in my career that haven’t been the done thing. I’ve walked away from one or two jobs because I didn’t feel it was right, when practically everybody told me to stay. People I trusted and who I value their opinions really, really highly. I’ve always gone on my gut on what I feel I should do.
“You’ve got to stick true to yourself, to your beliefs. You’ve got to forge your own path. My career [as a player] was snakes and ladders and eventually got to where I wanted.”
Today is the latest roll of the dice on that table that no longer feels like the gamble it once was.
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Brentford Chelsea forging his path keith andews Premier League Soccer