Six seasons in the Premier League used to sound like a fantasy. Now it is simply Brentford’s lived reality, and after trawling through dozens of fan voice notes recorded for the Besotted Pride of West London podcast’s season preview, one thing is obvious – nobody down at the Gtech is treating it like a novelty any more.
What comes through loudest across the recordings is relief. Last summer was chaos: Thomas Frank gone, half his staff gone with him, Ivan Toney sold, and Keith Andrews thrown in as an untested rookie. This time round the story is almost boringly calm, and Bees fans clearly love it for that. “Classic Brentford, kind of just doing stuff in the background,” is how Abby, who watches from West 235 with her dad, put it. “No one really talked much about us, and we just know we’ve got something boiling. In Matthew Benham we trust.”
That quiet confidence runs right through the podcast. Sarah Loewenthal called the transfer window a statement in itself. “God, what a signing,” she said of club-record arrival Mamadou Sangare, who is “largely responsible for Lens winning the French Cup and pushing PSG right to the wire. This shows that we mean business.” It is a theme picked up almost everywhere: Old Mead, a South Stand season-ticket holder, reckons this is simply “the strongest squad we’ve had since we’ve come up to the Prem,” while John from the West Stand called Sangare “an absolute bargain buy” who “could be an absolute beast in midfield.” Everyone hopes he’s spot on!
Jordan Henderson’s exit, by contrast, barely raised a murmur. “I don’t think he was the right fit morally for the club, right at the start when he came in.” Ian Westbrook agreed it was smart business, also praising Callum Wilson as “exactly what we needed, a backup striker who’s happy to be exactly that,” while flagging Jayden Anthony as a player who could finally give the front three the balance it lacked. Steve, the self-styled Baltimore Bee, went further still, describing Sangare as “the octopus in the midfield enforcing his will” and pointing out a midfield now stacked with Jensen, Damsgaard, Janelt, Yarmoliuk and the new man besides – “a surprising depth” few pundits are crediting Brentford with.
The returning injured are another recurring source of hope. Vicki P singled out the reaction Josh Dasilva will get – “the hugest cheer is going to be for Josh” – while Damo pointed to Rico Henry, Aaron Hickey and Milambo as reasons the squad finally has “a lot more defensive options” than it did in the run-in that saw Brentford win just once in their last eleven games. Cham went a step further, arguing the real gap now is a “real dynamite forward” like Saeed El Mallah to finish the job – proof that ambition, not survival, is the currency of this preview.
Predictions varied wildly, which tells its own story about how open this Premier League table looks. Lewis “Sherlock” Holmes went for seventh. Jonathan Burchill, reeling off the numbers from last year’s ninth-placed finish and a record fee north of £38 million, wondered aloud about silverware. Jon Restall, the Condor Man, kept it simpler: “your belief has to be that things will continue to go right for Brentford.” Nobody, tellingly, mentioned relegation with anything but scorn – a far cry from fears, whether public or private, twelve months ago.
That mood connects neatly with the argument Dave Lane put forward in his article Are Brentford Champions League Ready?, published after friendlies against Rennes and Eintracht Frankfurt left both sets of away fans insisting Brentford would be a top-four side in their own leagues. It is not a literal claim, and nobody pretends otherwise, but it captures exactly what the podcast contributors are feeling right now: a sense that Brentford’s level has quietly crept up to somewhere the rest of the division has not clocked yet.
Not every voice was pure sunshine. Old Mead worried openly about Igor Thiago repeating last season’s tally. Damo flagged Mathias Jensen as “a big flight risk.” Gary Scammell still wants a left-back and a ball-carrying centre-half before the window shuts. But even the caveats came wrapped in a settled, unbothered tone that simply was not there last August.
If there is a single line that sums up the collective mood, it might be Lord Lucan’s, delivered somewhere in the mist between hope and self-deprecation: “far, far happier than I was this time last year.” After five seasons of proving people wrong, Brentford fans do not sound like they are hoping for a miracle this time. They sound like they expect one to be entirely plausible.
Beesotted
