Brentford’s achievements during their first two seasons in the Premier League could have been ripped straight from the pages of a fairytale. Thomas Frank’s side beat Arsenal 2-0 on the opening day of the 2021-22 campaign and the magic did not stop there.
In January 2022, they signed the former Tottenham Hotspur and Inter Milan midfielder Christian Eriksen on a six-month contract. Eriksen had not played football since he suffered a cardiac arrest playing for Denmark against Finland at the European Championship in June 2021.
The club took a calculated risk with Eriksen and it paid off massively. He helped them win seven of their final 10 matches to avoid relegation. Eriksen even scored in a 4-1 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, which was Brentford’s first win over their west London rivals since February 1939.
When Eriksen rejected the offer of a new deal and joined Manchester United, there were concerns Brentford would struggle without him. Instead, they crushed United 4-0 in the second game of the 2022-23 season and finished ninth, narrowly missing out on qualifying for the Europa Conference League.
Since August 2022, Brentford have taken 22 points from members of the ‘Big Six’ — which is the joint-best record with Arsenal — and they were the only team to beat the champions Manchester City home and away last season.
Brentford, then, have been a thrilling addition to the Premier League, but here’s the potential issue: nobody is surprised by their achievements any more.
They are in a similar predicament to Crystal Palace, who have finished between 10th and 15th for nine consecutive years. Wolves flirted with relegation last season, but have not dropped below 13th since they returned to the top flight in 2018-19.
How do perennial mid-table clubs keep things fresh and exciting when the prospect of going down seems unlikely but the chances of breaking into the top six are even slimmer?
Glenn Murray helped Crystal Palace and Brighton earn promotion from the Championship and then spent three years with both sides in the top flight. He scored three goals in 19 appearances for Bournemouth, including the winner in a crucial victory over Chelsea, when they finished 16th under Eddie Howe in 2015-16. According to Murray, securing safety is always “your number one aim”.
Glenn Murray playing for Brighton in the Premier League in 2019 (Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)
“(The Premier League) stands still for nobody,” the 39-year-old tells The Athletic. “As soon as you say you’re not going to get relegated, then you will be. If you walk into the training ground with an aura of ‘we are sweet’, it will come back to bite you.
“It is a test every single week. It is relentless. If you get beaten a few times and start feeling sorry for yourself, it can swallow you up. No one is happy to be 17th every year, though. The hierarchy dream and want to take the club as high as possible.”
Birmingham City are a cautionary tale for any clubs who get too carried away. They reached the top flight in 2002-03 and finished four points behind eighth-placed Southampton.
Steve Bruce had created a solid squad and embellished it with a few eye-catching signings, including 1998 World Cup winner Christophe Dugarry and Finland international Mikael Forssell.
Birmingham reached the quarter-finals of both cup competitions in 2005-06, yet their form dipped in the league and they dropped into the second tier. Matthew Upson, who made over 100 appearances for Birmingham, believes it is the responsibility of the manager and the club’s senior players to ensure standards do not slip.
“It’s about the messaging from the staff,” Upson, who represented England at the 2010 World Cup, tells The Athletic. “People adopt that message and mentality and it becomes habitual, but you need to stay on top of it every season.
“You have to work harder to implement your message about how you want your team to behave than when you first came up with that group of players who, back then, were just so delighted to be achieving what they were achieving.”
Matt Upson in top flight action against Fulham in 2005 (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Before the start of the new season, there were serious concerns about how Brentford would cope without three of their most important players. Captain Pontus Jansson returned to his boyhood club Malmo, David Raya joined Arsenal on loan, and Ivan Toney is suspended until January for betting offences.
Losing your star players can have a positive impact on the squad by forcing others to step up. It is an opportunity to show the world you were not reliant on the contributions of one or two key individuals for success.
Southampton finished eighth under Mauricio Pochettino in 2013-14 and lost the core of their starting XI. Dejan Lovren, Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana joined Liverpool, while Luke Shaw and Calum Chambers moved to Manchester United and Arsenal respectively. Ronald Koeman took over as head coach and still guided them to seventh the following season.
Brighton finished ninth during 2021-22 and then sold Marc Cucurella and Yves Bissouma for a combined total of around £80million ($100m). After head coach Graham Potter was poached by Chelsea, his replacement, Roberto De Zerbi, led the side to a sixth-placed finish, meaning they qualified for European football for the first time in their history.
Mark Flekken, Raya’s replacement in goal, has looked solid in his first four games while Bryan Mbeumo has flourished after stepping out of Toney’s shadow.
“Brentford’s start has been good, which tells you a lot about them as a group,” Upson says. “There is no feeling of panic. It’s just about how, as a team, can you cope.
“When you’ve got a solid foundation, you can absorb that problem and deal with it because the team is stronger than any individual that may come or go.”
Brentford have an excellent track record in the transfer market for identifying players who can improve their squad, yet the amount of money they spend is rising rapidly. In July 2021, they signed Kristoffer Ajer for a then club-record fee of £13.5million. Last month, they had an offer of €40m for Johan Bakayako accepted by PSV Eindhoven — only for the 20-year-old winger to reject the move. The club’s success means they can make bolder signings, but eventually, they will make an expensive mistake and their reaction will be important.
Leicester City spent a lot of money under Brendan Rodgers trying to crack the top four and they finished fifth in consecutive seasons. They dropped to eighth in 2021-22 and then were relegated last season as some expensive mistakes caught up with them.
Everton finished in the top 10 for three seasons in a row between 2017 and 2019 but since then have become more accustomed to fighting the drop. During that era, they invested heavily in Yannick Bolasie, Davy Klaassen and Cenk Tosun, yet none of those deals worked out.
“Birmingham got relegated after Steve Bruce went high-end with our signings,” Upson says. “We took Jesper Gronkjaer, Mario Melchiot and Jiri Jarosik from Chelsea.
“The dressing room had a different feel when we got relegated compared to our first year in the division when we still had a real togetherness. It was work hard, play hard. Maintaining that as you upgrade the quality of player, which you need to do, is not easy.”
Danny Higginbotham made over 100 appearances for Stoke City across two spells. He rejoined the club in September 2008 to boost their chances of avoiding relegation. Following a poor run of form over Christmas, manager Tony Pulis signed James Beattie and Matthew Etherington in January. Beattie was directly involved in 10 goals in 16 games while Etherington provided three assists.
“They completely transformed things,” Higginbotham says. “It gives the whole team a lift because these are two players that are potentially going to take us to the next level and they are good characters.
“It’s so important when you sign a player that you’re asking for references. How is he going to react if you lose five or six games in a row? If your dressing room isn’t strong enough to cope with different characters, it can upset the harmony.”
Five of Brentford’s starting XI for their 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on the opening day of this season also started their 2-1 defeat to Fulham in the 2020 Championship play-off final. Brentford’s success has been built on a strong core of players they recruited during their time in the second tier, including Ethan Pinnock, Rico Henry, Mathias Jensen, Christian Norgaard and Mbeumo.
Pinnock was still playing semi-professionally for Dulwich Hamlet at the age of 22 while Jensen and Norgaard restarted their careers at Brentford after respective moves to Celta Vigo and Fiorentina did not work out. Raya’s performances for Brentford led to him being part of Spain’s squad at the 2022 World Cup while Kevin Schade has been promoted into Germany’s senior setup.
“You see players come in from big clubs with pedigree and for big money. The challenge is to keep proving yourself at that level,” Murray says. “It’s something you’ve worked your entire career to reach.
“You want to take the club as far as you can, but the dream is to represent a top six club and play in Europe. The longer you stay in the Premier League, that’s your chance to prove you’re good enough to represent your country, too.”
Brentford were knocked out in the third round of both cup competitions last season. Their chances of progressing further in the Carabao Cup this year have been complicated by drawing Arsenal at home. There are a couple of examples, though, of mid-table teams who have successfully chased silverware.
Portsmouth won the FA Cup for only the second time in their history under Harry Redknapp in 2008 and Swansea City lifted the Carabao Cup trophy in 2013. Murray was part of Brighton’s squad which reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup in 2018-19, only to see Gabriel Jesus score the winner for Man City in the fourth minute.
“The ultimate for a professional is to win something at the highest level,” Murray says. “A cup run is amazing and no one would turn it down, but are you realistically thinking about it as a newly promoted club in the first, second or third year? Probably not.
“Every time you step on the field you want to win. But in those early rounds, you’re not thinking ‘let’s get to Wembley’. When you get to the quarter-finals, then you can.”
Stoke went one step further than Brighton by reaching the final at Wembley in 2011. Yaya Toure’s fierce half-volley earned Man City their first trophy under Sheikh Mansour’s ownership. Stoke were disappointed, but it still had a positive impact.
“It was the best and worst time of my career,” Higginbotham says. “I scored in the quarter-final against West Ham United and then a couple of weeks later suffered a cruciate ligament injury which meant I missed the semi-final and the final.
“But it picked our league form up. It became competition for places and something else to look forward to. After we played West Ham, we beat Newcastle United 4-0 and that was one of the best performances I was involved with at Stoke. The confidence grew and the atmosphere changed around the place.”
Danny Higginbotham celebrates scoring against Bolton Wanderers in 2011 (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Stoke’s reward for losing to Man City was a place in the third qualifying round for the Europa League. They got past Hajduk Split and then Swiss side Thun to reach the group stages, where they were drawn against Besiktas, Dynamo Kyiv and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
“It was a great experience, but it can become a poisoned chalice,” Higginbotham, who started three group games, says. “You’re playing on a Thursday and then a Sunday. You would be flying back late Thursday night or early Friday morning. It was a grind and it affected us. We beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-1 and three days later we lost 5-0 to Bolton (Wanderers) away. It throws you off.
“Look at what David Moyes did with West Ham winning the Europa Conference League. That was brilliant. It’s a fine line between getting it right.”
Brentford have taken six points from their first four games of the new season and remain unbeaten. Up next, they face Newcastle United at St James’ Park on Saturday. Trips to Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford are on the horizon, too. After you’ve been in the division for a few years, does the excitement of playing these teams disappear?
“Preparing for a Premier League game, compared to a Championship game, with the amount of media coverage and the buzz around the training ground is exciting every single week,” Murray says.
“Towards the end of my career, I could really appreciate it as I knew there wasn’t long left. I would take a moment to look around at these full stadiums and drink it all in. That is what the little kid in me always wanted and dreamed of. If that wears off, you’re in the wrong industry.”
(Top photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
