*Brentford enjoying understated summer ahead of new season
*Bees took step back during 2023/24 campaign
*Future of Ivan Toney remains unresolved
FROM THE GTECH COMMUNITY STADIUM – So much attention surrounding Brentford for the last 12 months and beyond has been squared on Ivan Toney.
And, well, yeah, here he is intruding in the first paragraph of a wider piece on the state of the team and the club.
This was the underlying and then overlying narrative behind their stagnant 2023/24 season, which ended in a 16th-place Premier League finish. It almost made outsiders forget they were a couple of points away from European qualification the year prior.
That was modern Brentford at their apex. A forward-thinking, ahead-of-the-curve club punching well above their weight, so nearly achieving a dream of continental football – 59 points was no joke.
Thomas Frank and his men tried to rely on whatever continuity they had heading into last season, with Toney banned for the first half of it due to betting offences and goalkeeper David Raya heading to Arsenal. The major signings they did make, namely defender Nathan Collins and Raya replacement Mark Flekken, took some time to get going.
The spanner in the works was an injury crisis which hung over this picturesque patch of west London like a stormy cloud. Seemingly no one was spared and Frank had to rotate his team week on week, cohesion now merely a luxury rather than their strength. His plans to implement a more progressive style akin to their days in the Championship became complicated.
Even heading into 2024/25, Brentford may be forced to change their strategy in regards to Toney, who is into the last 12 months of his contract. His club-record replacement, Igor Thiago, is unlikely to play again until December at the earliest after hurting his knee in a friendly with AFC Wimbledon.
And so whether they like it or not, the new season may be one about consolidation for the Bees. Stay up and regroup, look for the small signs of improvement, hope the injury fairy is kinder this year. The wait for a first bonafide successful marquee signing since Christian Eriksen may go on.
That might be grating, but it isn’t necessarily straight-up bad. During Brentford’s barren eight-match winless run in their debut 2021/22 Premier League campaign, Frank stressed it would take multiple years for the club to establish themselves in the top flight, to have the confidence to dominate the ball as they did in the second tier. From within Brentford, not getting relegated is an overachievement to be proud of.
Progress isn’t linear, either. When Brentford were promoted back to the Championship in 2014, they qualified for the play-offs at the first attempt. It would take them another five years to even get back to that point, a further 12 months to achieve their dream of making it to the Premier League. That half-decade or so stretch was spent treading water and waiting for the stars to align.
So what does this mean for the Brentford of the now?
At the very least, it feels like a chance for a do-over at 2023/24, if their final summer friendly, a 4-4 draw with Wolfsburg, is anything to go by.
The Bees took different forms through their last 90 minutes of pre-season. Sometimes they were 4-3-3, sometimes 4-4-2, sometimes 3-5-2. It was an interchangeable and fluid team featuring eight players from the club’s maiden Premier League campaign, but one befitting of their late-Championship image.
All three forwards not named Toney – Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Kevin Schade – were among the goals and had joy pulling their Bundesliga opposition apart. That had been the hope for last season before Schade and Mbeumo went down with long-term injuries. There is a feeling they want to right some wrongs of the year just gone.
And after all of this, Toney might not leave Brentford for at least a few more months anyway. Time remains for his last dance, an encore to his Euro 2024 cameo. The Bees aren’t making outlandish splashes, but that might not matter.
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