Brentford must not crumble as they go top of the Championship

Brentford’s inspired form of late has seen them claw their way to the top of the Championship table. Two late goals from Josh Dasilva and Ivan Toney spurred the Bees on to a 3-1 victory over Reading mid-week, and the subsequent three points resulted in Thomas Frank’s side leapfrogging Norwich City and into the top spot.

It was a fourth successive victory for the west London side, who are in free-scoring form having found the net an impressive 17 times in that period. In fact, they are now unbeaten in over 20 league games and you have to go back to gameweek seven in October to find the last blemish on their record – a 3-2 defeat away to Stoke City.

Given their fantastic form, it’s no surprise that the Bees are now the favourites to win the title in the Paddy Power Championship odds. However, this is a position that they found themselves in at this stage last season and for one reason or another they crumbled as the pressure of gaining promotion to the top flight for the first time since 1947 began to mount in the latter stages of the campaign.

Brentford looked certain to gain automatic promotion last year, but shock defeats at the hands of Stoke and Barnsley on the final two gameweeks allowed West Bromwich Albion in to nick second place, before the Bees agonisingly lost to their local rivals Fulham in a nail-biting play-off final at Wembley.

Following the victory over Reading, Frank, who knows first-hand how it felt to miss out on promotion last season, was quick to play down the fact that his team are now top of the table.

“It means more to the fans and the club than it does to me and the players,” the Bees boss said. “Of course, you need to do well to be there and we have done well all season, especially in the 21-game unbeaten run. But we must show an even bigger burning desire to continue to work even harder and be extremely focused. We must not get carried away and must focus on recovery and then the next match.”

Before the season got underway, not many would have expected Brentford to be flying high at the top of the table. It’s notoriously hard to bounce back from the blow of missing out on promotion, especially given the nature of narrowly missing out on automatic promotion before losing the play-off final.

That aside, the Bees also lost two of their famous BMW attack. Saïd Benrahma joined West Ham, initially on loan before putting pen-to-paper on a permanent deal in January, whilst Ollie Watkins signed for Aston Villa back in September. However, Ivan Toney has stepped up to the challenge from League One side Peterborough United, and is the Championship’s top scorer with 23 goals, while the likes of Tarique Fosu and Sergi Canos have provided good cover on the right in the absence of Benrahma.

The task now for Frank is to ensure that his side don’t crumble in the latter stages of the competition again. There are still some 18 games remaining for Brentford, so anything can happen between now and the end of the season, but it would be a monumental shame to see the Bees miss out on promotion again.

After all, it would be a breath of fresh air to have a new team in the Premier League for the 2021/21 campaign, rather than one of the usual suspects who bounce between the leagues season after season.