Chelsea welcome Brentford to Stamford Bridge on Saturday in the race for Champions League football, and it’s the Bees who are flying high under manager Keith Andrews
Keith Andrews admits he was too busy in the summer to take notice of the doom mongers writing off Brentford. The Bees lost their manager Thomas Frank, captain Christian Norgaard, main goalscorers Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa as well as their No.1 keeper, Mark Flekken.
It looked a pretty task for Andrews to step up from set-piece coach to succeed Frank as Brentford boss but they have been one of the best stories of this Premier League season. Andrews, 45, is a hugely impressive character who has defied most pre-season predictions which had Brentford going down as one of the three relegated clubs.
They are sitting pretty in fifth place going into this weekend and looking upwards. Brentford is a super smart club, they had a succession plan in place with the expectation Frank might quit (as he did for Tottenham) and keeping Andrews in the building was key.
Andrews said: “I didn’t have much time to read a lot in the summer as you can imagine, I just cracked on what I could control day-to-day and just focused on the priority on what was needed that day, that week.
“I was very positive and optimistic around the squad because I knew the characters really, really well. Did I anticipate we would be fifth in the league? No.
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“I’d be lying if I said I did because of the amount of upheaval. The hinges could have come off the door in the summer because of all the changes but it’s testament to the key people at the club that kept things ticking over really well.
“I would have said that there would be a big transition when Thomas left. But I was well aware of the values of the club, the humility, the way we worked and I really believe when you do that and work hard collectively, there’s only one outcome.”
That outcome has been pretty spectacular. They have beaten the likes of Aston Villa, Manchester United and Liverpool at home this season.
The recruitment has been excellent. Jordan Henderson was such an astute signing. Keeper Caoimhin Kelleher has been superb and 17 goal Igor Thiago has found his feet a year on from his £30million arrival, having missed much of his first season through injury.
Andrews gives a lot of credit to his “trusted lieutenants” in the dressing room who also know just how important the fan base is because the Gtech Community Stadium has been such a stronghold. Andrews said: “The results which have come in recent weeks don’t come from the hard work in recent weeks, they come from the work in the past months and months.
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“They are the values which underpin this season. The dressing room is really strong. It wasn’t an easy summer and once the window shut I was up there with one of the happiest men in the world because then I knew what I was left to work with and who was in and who was not in.
“It’s probably a combination of the trusted lieutenants that have been here for a number of years who I have loved working with and they are really important people to me. Players and staff.
“Then you have the impetus of new players to freshen things up, we lost a lot of talent in the summer, clearly. We lost our captain, we had to replace certain aspects of that to be a competitive squad. I think we did that really well.
“We didn’t panic buy towards the end of the window. We were very content with what we had and there’s been some very successful individual stories within the collective.”
Former Republic of Ireland international Andrews had a much travelled playing career and first got into coaching under Karl Robinson at MK Dons. His path took him to Brentford as a set-piece coach but he is also a very familiar face because he was a pundit for Sky Sports and worked alongside Chelsea’s new boss, Liam Rosenior, in the TV studio on numerous occasions.
Andrews added: “We worked together and did a few games together. I don’t like traditional routes because I don’t think there is a set way into management.”
And whatever path Andrews has taken, it has served him very well.
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