On the brink of history: Brentford

Come Tuesday evening, it will be exactly a year since Brentford opened their 2019/2020 campaign with a 1-0 defeat away to Birmingham City. Since then, the West Londoners have come far and are now on the brink securing a place in the Premier League for the first time.

It has been a long tough season for the Bees but an even longer wait to get to this stage.

Brentford’s journey to the brink of the Premier League has been unorthodox. Their lack of spending compared to their counterparts, and a modest wage bill combines with losing their star players almost every other year in recent times. It has been a long journey which is now one step away from being completed as Premier League football dawns over the Borough of Hounslow.

Life at Brentford  has not always been what it is today, with the club possessing many talented players within their ranks, a rather young forward thinking manager and a brand new 17,000 seater stadium set to open.

The Bees supporters have seen it all, relegation heartaches, the delight of promotions as well as their club almost going into extinction on multiple occasions but come 11pm tomorrow night, they will be hoping to be planning trips to the likes of Old Trafford, Anfield, Stamford Bridge and the Emirates, COVID permitting, in the upcoming season.

Having missed out on automatic promotion, the Bees came up against a high flying Swansea city in their last outing, trailing 1-0 from the first leg and history against them.

However, the silky passing and sharp-shooting Brentford returned for the second leg as they blew Swansea away, breaking a curse of losing all eight play-off games they’ve been involved in, dating back to 1991.

Apart from the potential £160 million windfall, Brentford have a lot riding on this game.

Their forward line of ‘BMW’, who have bagged 59 goals between them, risk being disbanded should they fail to get promotion. It is no secret that top scorer Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma have drawn interest from multiple teams in the Premier League, most notably Chelsea who are rumoured to be interested in the latter.

Offers will undoubtedly come in for both in the coming months but a place in the top division will of course make them think twice about departing.

In the way are West London rivals Fulham, who they have beaten home and away this season, the most recent win coming just a few weeks back.

The Cottagers do however possess much more experience at this level having won the play-off final in 2018 but in a one-off game at Wembley, anything is possible.

Match Preview: Brentford v Fulham: The deciding factors in West London’s biggest derby ever?

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