Football writer Adrian Kajumba looks at the tactics that have helped Brentford make fast starts to their last three Premier League matches.
Brentford’s players repeatedly spent time in training last week rehearsing the crucial first four or five passes of their kick-off routine against West Ham United.
They plotted who would play each pass and exactly where the ball needed to land, until the plan became second nature.
It was practice that paid off once again as, incredibly, they became the first team to score in the opening minute of THREE successive Premier League matches, having also caught Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur cold from kick-off.
“So many things need to go our way,” said Brentford head coach Thomas Frank.
One such factor would be winning the coin toss but what comes next, Frank insists, “is not a coincidence”.
As a situation they can set up and control, the Bees see kick-off as a set-piece and they take those seriously.
Set-piece coaches
The calibre of coach they have had overseeing set-pieces down the years underlines that.
Some of the most renowned set-piece specialists have worked for Brentford at some point - including Gianni Vio, who previously coached at Spurs and AC Milan - before being snapped up by other clubs as an endorsement of their work.
The most recent example was Bernardo Cueva, who left the Bees to join Chelsea in the summer.
Brentford's past set-piece coaches
| Coach | Current team |
| Gianni Vio | United States |
|---|---|
| Nicolas Jover | Arsenal |
| Andreas Georgson | Man Utd |
| Bernardo Cueva | Chelsea |
After they advertised publicly for a replacement, former Republic of Ireland midfielder Keith Andrews (below, right) was chosen as Cueva's successor.
And Brentford have never worked on kick-offs in as much forensic detail as they do under Andrews. No wonder, then, that Frank says Andrews “deserves all the credit”.
There have been numerous similarities to Brentford’s three first-minute goals beyond the timing. The ball being played back from kick-off, bodies flooding forward to where it is expected to drop, winning second balls and the ferocious, unsettling intensity to their first attack.
Unfortunately for the Bees, there is also a pattern to what happens AFTER they have scored. They have not won any of the matches that they have begun with a flying start. Nor have they been able to repeat their success in any of their six kick-offs after conceding.
Those trends may offer Brentford’s opponents hope, but teams facing Frank's side will still want to survive the first minute without conceding.
“Get the ball off them and under control as soon as possible” might well be one of Gary O’Neil’s main messages if Brentford kick off against his Wolverhampton Wanderers side at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday.
Brentford's goal against Man City
Against Man City, Yoane Wissa (No 11 in image below) scored for Brentford after just 22 seconds.
From kick-off, the Bees played the ball back to goalkeeper Mark Flekken (No 1), who fired it into City territory down the right, with towering 6ft 5in defender Kristoffer Ajer (No 20) being a logical target, given his likelihood of winning the first header.
Three times in the match's opening move, Man City got a touch on the ball. But any scraps for the second ball were won by Brentford and City never managed two successive touches, preventing them having a chance to secure possession before conceding.
“A big part [of this tactic] is Ajer," said Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football show.
“The actual work initially is targeting a really tall player, keeping the ball alive in a certain area and almost being ready and alive [to the situation].”
Brentford's goal against Spurs
Brentford’s first attack at Spurs, where Bryan Mbeumo (No 19) struck on 23 seconds, was the same - the ball was played back to Flekken who launched it down the right towards Ajer.
Despite Micky van de Ven and Dejan Kulusevski’s attempts to win possession, Spurs were then also denied the chance to settle before Brentford regained the ball and worked it wide to Keane Lewis-Potter, who crossed for Mbeumo.
Brentford's goal against West Ham
With their kick-off tactics tweaked from match to match after hours spent on opposition analysis, Brentford mixed things up against West Ham when Mbeumo scored after 38 seconds.
This time, the kick-off went back to Nathan Collins (No 22) and then across to Ethan Pinnock (No 5), who delivered the ball long into a more central area.
A header by West Ham defender Maximilian Kilman (No 26) temporarily forced Brentford backwards and they had to restart the attack, which included two half-cleared crosses by Kevin Schade (No 7).
But, once again, there were no successive touches from West Ham, allowing Brentford to keep them pinned in and eventually score through Mbeumo.
Hammers midfielder Tomas Soucek said his team were “ashamed” to be undone by the Bees in the first minute, given the warning signs from the previous games.
But it is one thing knowing about Brentford’s threat and another trying to counter it, especially when Frank's men are one step ahead and clearly capable of conjuring up new ways to outwit their Premier League rivals.