Another piece of history will be made for the Brentford Community Stadium on Tuesday night, when it hosts its first midweek Championship game.
An in-form Norwich City side are the opponents for Brentford and they arrive on the back of three successive wins that have seen them storm into the play-off places.
The Canaries, relegated after just one season in the Premier League in July, made a slow start to the campaign with only one win in their opening four matches, but now appear to have got into their groove.
They opened their league season with a 1-0 win at Huddersfield, but then drew 2-2 at home to Preston, before suffering 1-0 defeats at Bournemouth and at home to Derby.
However, since the international break their form has dramatically changed as they followed a 2-1 win at Rotherham with back-to-back home victories over Birmingham (1-0) and on Saturday, Wycombe (2-1).
Their Carabao Cup run ended at the first hurdle when they lost 3-1 at fellow Championship side Luton.
Norwich have yo-yoed between the Championship and the Premier League a lot in the past decade.
They went from League One to the top flight in two seasons from 2009 to 2011 and then stayed in the Premier League for three seasons.
That was their longest spell there since playing in its first three campaigns from 1992, when they finished third in its inaugural competition.
Relegation in 2014 was followed by immediate promotion from the Championship, but another relegation followed 12 months later.
They won the Championship in 2019, but finished bottom of the Premier League last season.
WHO’S IN CHARGE
Daniel Farke was appointed as Alex Neil’s successor at Carrow Road at the end of May 2017.
That makes him the 14th longest-serving manager in the country and fifth longest-serving in the Championship behind Gareth Ainsworth (Wycombe), Paul Warne (Rotherham), Tony Mowbray (Blackburn) and Mark Robins (Coventry)
Farke took over as Borussia Dortmund’s reserve team coach in 2015 – replacing David Wagner after he left to go to Huddersfield.
Stuart Webber, now the Canaries’ sporting director, was with the Terriers at the time that Wagner joined the club.
Farke, who spent his playing career in Germany’s lower divisions, is Norwich’s first foreign manager.
WE’VE MET BEFORE
Norwich have had the better of their eight meetings with Brentford in the Championship, with four wins and two draws in our eight meetings.
There were two away wins in 2014/15 – our first meetings in league action for five seasons – as a goal from Alexander Tettey and a Cameron Jerome double gave the Canaries a 3-0 win at Griffin Park, before Jota and an Alex Pritchard penalty, either side of Nathan Redmond’s equaliser, gave us a revenge 2-1 triumph in Norfolk.
After a season in the Premier League, Norwich returned to our fixture list in 2016/17 and we failed to score against them in our two meetings.
We were on the wrong end of a 5-0 hiding at Carrow Road, with Jacob Murphy, Graham Dorrans, Robbie Brady, Nelson Oliveira and Alex Pritchard on target, before holding them to a 0-0 draw in the return.
We met three times in 2017/18, with the Canaries drawing first blood in a 3-1 third round Carabao Cup win at Griffin Park, with a Mario Vrancic double (one a penalty) and Josh Murphy strike making Josh Clarke’s late reply a mere consolation. The most notable event of the tie for the Bees was Chris Mepham making his full senior debut for the club.
We beat them for the first time in four meetings in the Championship just before Christmas with our 2-1 Friday night win at Carrow Road.
Lasse Vibe’s first half double set up the victory, with Nelson Oliveira replying in second half stoppage time.
A worldie from James Maddison in the fifth minute at Griffin Park continued the run of away wins in meetings between the two sides as it secured a 1-0 success for City.
Norwich took four of the six points available the following season on their way to promotion to the Premier League.
The Carrow Road meeting at the end of October saw the Bees slip to a 1-0 defeat in Thomas Frank’s third game in charge. Emiliano Buendia scored his first goal in English football in the 34th minute and that was enough to take the points.
Dan Bentley kept Brentford in the game on the stroke of half-time when he saved a penalty from ex-Bee Jordan Rhodes, after Ollie Watkins had fouled Max Aarons.
And then the Championship’s top scorer Neal Maupay missed a great chance to rescue a point in the 70th minute, when he hit the bar from close range.
It left the Bees winless in eight games in the league and dropped us down to 16th in the table, while Norwich climbed up to fourth.
The return on New Year’s Day ended 1-1 and Brentford did enough to win it.
The Bees had turned the corner form-wise and this game stretched our unbeaten run to four matches, while Norwich started 2019 in second place.
Julian Jeanvier headed us ahead from a corner with his first Championship goal midway through the first half, but Timm Klose maintained the Canaries’ promotion charge when he headed in an 84th-minute corner to equalise.
The Bees stayed 18th in the table – six points clear of the relegation zone.
OPPOSITION VIEW
BBC Radio Norfolk sports editor and commentator Chris Goreham tells us how Norwich have started the season, what business they did in the brief transfer window and looks at Daniel Farke’s time in charge at Carrow Road.
Q – How would you assess Norwich’s start to the season?
A – The last week has turned it into a decent start. With four points on the board from the opening four games the fixtures against Rotherham (a), Birmingham (h) and Wycombe (h) felt like a pivotal spell. A maximum return from those three has felt like the sort of run that could really get this season going.
All three came thanks to late winners too. That’s encouraging because City have been finding a way to win when not at their best. It’s the sort of quality that often evades teams smarting from relegation.
Q – What were the expectations at the start of the campaign – immediate promotion, play-off push, consolidation or relegation worries?
A – When the transfer window closed and Max Aarons, Emi Buendia and Todd Cantwell were still at the club there was a mixture of surprise and relief. On paper the squad looks good enough to be competing at the very top. It’s arguably better than the squads Daniel Farke has had to work with in the previous two seasons.
That’s not to say that anything is being taken for granted. Norwich fans know from bitter experience that having a squad that looks good isn’t enough to guarantee Championship success. In fact their best seasons have often been the ones with lowest expectations at the start.
Q – How disappointing was it for the Canaries to be relegated after only one season in the Premier League?
A – The manner of the relegation was more disappointing than the fact it happened. City’s lack of spending power meant that the Premier League was always going to be a huge battle. We all knew staying up would be a remarkable achievement. When Project Restart happened we thought five wins would keep them up.
They still had Southampton, Everton, Brighton, West Ham and Burnley to come to Carrow Road as well as a trip to Watford. Survival still felt possible. But to lose all of those final nine games, scoring just once, was disappointing. In the end it was a squad with a lot of potential that didn’t quite do itself justice.
Q – How good a job has Daniel Farke done in his time at Carrow Road?
A – The promotion season of 2018-19 has guaranteed his place in Norfolk folklore. James Maddison had been sold the previous summer and even with Maddison they’d only finished 14th in Farke’s first season. He assembled a squad that supporters really bonded with. A mix of youth and experience that played with an exciting swashbuckling style.
Relegation was disappointing but the fact he’s still in charge after that illustrates the high regard in which Farke is held by the club.
Q – What transfer business did Norwich do over the close season?
A – Much of it was spent dealing with speculation about Ben Godfrey, Jamal Lewis, Buendia, Cantwell and Aarons going. In the end only two of them were sold and it felt like Norwich got as much as they possibly could for them.
At the same time 11 new players arrived to lift the mood and breathe some life into a squad that was bruised by a brutal season in the Premier League. The Championship experience of players like Ben Gibson and Jordan Hugill feels like it will come in very handy this season.
Q – Who are the key men in the Canaries’ side this season?
A – If Teemu Pukki can rediscover his form of a couple of seasons ago he will take some stopping. Much is expected of Buendia and Cantwell too. Daniel Farke recently described Tim Krul as the best goalkeeper in the division.
Q – Finally can you give me a likely Norwich formation and line-up for Tuesday please?
A – They have been playing a 4-2-3-1 with Pukki as a very advanced number 10. Whether they go with that again or perhaps bring an extra midfielder in place of Pukki or Hugill is the main call Farke has to make.
The match is being played behind closed doors at the Brentford Community Stadium at 7.45pm on Tuesday, but is being shown live on iFollow. Season ticket holders will receive a free code to use to watch the match, but others can buy a match pass for £10.
Live audio commentary is available on iFollow with Mark Burridge and Marcus Gayle, and there is also live commentary on BBC London digital.
IAN WESTBROOK
@ianwestbrook
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