Keith Andrews knows all about the ups and downs of football, the contrasting fates illustrated starkly on Wednesday morning.
As the Dubliner was preparing for his biggest test yet in management, pitting his Brentford team against the number one side in England and Europe, news came through that his friend, former boss and mentor Thomas Frank had been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur.
Andrews was sad but full of praise for the man who’d brought him to Brentford as set-piece coach, and whose role as manager he’d taken over last summer. But at the same time he knew he had to give full focus to Thursday night’s game against Arsenal, the sort of David and Goliath meeting that Brentford love, having beaten all of the traditional ‘Big Six’ in their first two years of Premier League football.
Frank was responsible for those victories, starting with a 2-1 defeat of Arsenal on a memorable Friday night to kick off their life in the Premier League five years ago, but Andrews has carried on tilting at windmills, as the smallest club in the Premier League continue to punch well above their weight.
Already this season he has led the team that Frank called “a bus stop in Hounslow” to victories over Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton, plus two wins each against Aston Villa and Newcastle.
Their latest triumph, at St James’ Park last Saturday, took them into seventh place, level with Liverpool and within six points of fourth-placed United.
While Frank found the chaos at dysfunctional Tottenham too much for him, Andrews has stepped up seamlessly to the leading role at a supremely well run club.
“I found out as I was in the meeting room, getting ready to present our gameplan on Arsenal to the players,” he said.
“My initial feeling was very sad, really. Thomas is a friend. We’re very aware of the football industry we work in and what goes on in it. I hope he’s OK, which I’m sure he will be, but today’s obviously a really tough day for him.”
For Andrews though, his first big job is exceeding expectations. He takes the same approach to management as he did as a player and pundit – uncompromising, smart and innovative. He has always been a leader, becoming captain of Wolverhampton Wanderers at 21, the youngest skipper of that great old club in over 100 years. He went on to captain many of the teams he played for in a peripatetic playing career than was never as glamorous as those of Pep Guardiola or Mikel Arteta, but still a great learning curve. Now he is testing themselves against those two, and others, in the managerial world and he loves the head-to-head battles.
“I relish them,” he said. “I relish every single game. I feel like it’s what I’ve worked towards for a long, long time. I’ve always had an impact in game plans or set pieces, whatever role I’ve been in. But obviously in this role I have a greater impact.
“There’s a lot of people involved, but I do relish the battles and the game plans and ultimately trying to win games.”
He also enjoys upsetting the odds, as befits a man who did not mind who he upset as a TV pundit. Brentford were widely tipped for relegation when Frank’s departure was followed by the sale of captain Christian Norgaard and strikers Bryan Mbeumo and Yoan Wissa, who’d scored 39 of Brentford’s 66 league goals last season.
But the Bees have thrived, not least because Igor Thiago has recovered from a season-long injury to hit 17 goals in 25 games so far, plus the introduction of Dango Outtara, two more in a long list of strikers unearthed by the west London club’s superb scouting operation.
“He (Thiago) is in really good form, leading the line well and scoring goals. He’s playing with confidence and loving playing with his teammates.
“The relationships we spoke about early in the season and how we want to build those and the rapport our players have, that connection, that cohesion that they have, I think has been even more evident when you think about him and Dango in recent weeks. I think Thiago’s in a good place for tomorrow night, while Dango’s been brilliant. The quality he has is incredible and his ceiling is high.”
Andrews knows Brentford will have to be at their best to beat Arsenal again.
“They are the best team in the country. The table doesn’t tend to lie. They’ve got so many talented individuals that are capable of moments. And then, equally, the way that Mikel has the team set up and how they can hurt you in different phases of the game.
“You have to be on things for every minute of the game, every second of the game, to try and nullify what they throw at you. So we’d have to produce a top performance.”
As a former set-piece coach, Andrews is fully aware of Arsenal’s greatest attacking weapon. “No doubt, it’s going to be a huge part of the game. We cause a lot of chaos ourselves, so I’ll look forward to that story unfolding.”
He joked how his heart sank when he saw Arsenal resort to long throws as they lost to Paris St Germain last season, after he had pioneered the way with Brentford. “I was at Arsenal’s game in the Champions League when Thomas Partey started launching them into the box, and I remember thinking, ‘that’s not good because it’s going to catch on’.
“When the big boys do things, it tends to trickle down. Now teams prepare for long throws and when you train more, amazingly, you get better at it.”
Andrews says he could not dream that his first season would go so well, so far. “Probably not, but equally I had a lot of confidence in the group and the club, what we could try to achieve.
“The season is far from over, but we’ve consistently taken steps forward, even when we’ve had setbacks. We just regroup and try to fix things in a very common sense way. ‘What do we want to achieve? Where do we want to go with this?’ And just work hard.
“I think that’s been the underlying part of what we’ve done. Stay humble, keep striving and see where it brings us. We’re in a place where I feel like we deserve to be.”
