Read our 2026/27 season preview for Brentford where Keith Andrews is aiming to build on an impressive first season in the job.
Andrews succeeded Thomas Frank at the Gtech Community Stadium, guiding the Bees to their joint highest-ever Premier League finish of ninth, despite being touted for the drop after a turbulent summer.
Key question
Will Igor Thiago produce another clinical campaign?
Brazilian centre forward Igor Thiago was a revelation for Brentford last term, netting 22 league goals after an unfortunate injury limited him to just 175 minutes the season after he signed for a club-record fee from Club Brugge.
The 25-year-old led the Belgian side to their 20th top-flight title, scoring 18 times in 29 starts and delivered on that promise during his second season in West London.
Second only to Erling Haaland in the race to win the Golden Boot, Thiago was one of just two Premier League players to reach 20+ goals throughout the campaign, contributing hugely to Brentford’s unexpectedly lofty finishing position.
His 22-strong tally did see him outperform his xG for the season – albeit not by much – however, maybe more unsustainable, is the amount of penalties that he converted. A whopping 36% of Thiago’s league strikes came from the spot last season and it’s unrealistic to expect that to continue.
The Bees were the only team to be awarded 10+ penalties in 2025/26 and just the fifth side in the last five seasons to earn double-figure spot kicks. Ordinarily, teams who win the most penalties are extremely dominant, attacking sides, so it is likely that Brentford’s numbers will regress next term.
Key transfer
Mamadou Sangare
Well, they’ve done it again.
Brentford, along with Bournemouth and Brighton, have managed to constantly outdo their peers in terms of recruitment over recent years and the capture of Sangare from Lens has all the hallmarks of another great success.
Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and David Raya are just three players that the Bees have moved on for sizeable profit since earning promotion to the Premier League and their latest capture, Mamadou Sangare, could be the best of the lot.
Unlike those three, Sangare had been touted for a top-six move prior to his arrival at the Gtech Community Stadium and if he continues to progress at the rate he currently is, then he is destined to move to an elite side.
For sure one of the most well-rounded midfielders on the planet, Sangare is somewhat of a ‘cheat code’, in that he can become the solution for tactical problems by just stepping foot on the pitch. Exceptional at recovering possession, able to pick out forward passes and extremely adept when it comes to close dribbling; Sangare truly has it all.
All this, combined with his ability to produce in the final third, and Brentford might have made the most eye-catching signing bar none this summer.
Breakout star
Antoni Milambo
Antoni Milambo’s debut campaign at Bournemouth was brought to a premature end when he suffered an ACL injury whilst on international duty with Netherlands U21s.
He was, according to a Brentford press release, “progressing well” after undergoing surgery and should be ready to go for the start of the upcoming season. Naturally, Milambo will need some time to settle back into the rhythm of regular minutes but once has done so, has the potential to have a huge impact at the Gtech Community Stadium.
The Bees pulled off quite the coup when they secured the signature of the highly-touted midfielder for a reported £17m last summer. Manchester United were rumoured to be interested in bringing Milambo to Old Trafford, impressed by a breakout campaign at boyhood club Feyenoord where he scored seven goals and laid on a further seven assists in all competitions.
During his last season in the Dutch top-flight, Milambo racked up the seventh-most minutes of players aged 21 or under, no other player in that category able to match his key pass (28) and assist (six) tallies.
In addition to those numbers, the 21-year-old also possesses huge physical ability, able to clock up huge running distances; doing it all at an electric pace.
What is a good season?
Top-half finish
Everything at Brentford is far more stable than it was this time 12 months ago.
The Bees lost their manager in Thomas Frank, best attackers in Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa and club captain in Christian Norgaard.
In producing a ninth-placed finish, the club demonstrated that their off-pitch thinking is completely joined up with the goings on, on it.
Although they are likely to go well again during the upcoming campaign, it is realistic to expect the likes of Tottenham and Chelsea to improve beyond them and Bees fans would surely take it if their side were able to end the campaign inside the Premier League’s top 10.
Bold prediction
Igor Thiago will score less than 10 league goals
Thiago performed brilliantly to finish runner-up to Erling Haaland in the Premier League Golden Boot race last season, however, there are reasons why he might be due a slight regression heading into his third campaign in West London.
Of his 22 league strikes, eight of them came from the penalty spot; history tells us that this is unlikely to happen in consecutive terms. Not only was Thiago’s haul from 12 yards the fourth-most ever in a Premier League season, but Brentford as a team received an unusually high amount of spot-kicks.
Then there are the doubts around Brentford as a team. The Bees outperformed effectively all expectations to finish the league season in ninth place but their drop-off in performance towards the latter stages of the campaign might offer a small glimpse into the future.
The Bees won just one of their last 10 league matches – coming against subsequently relegated West Ham – and Thiago’s form took a worrying dip too, showing that it might be hard for him to replicate his goalscoring heroics when featuring in a struggling team.
Will they be better than last season?
No.
The signings of Jaidon Anthony and Callum Wilson might not capture the imagination; however, it would be foolish not to back Brentford in the transfer market given their stellar track record. Jannik Schuster, arriving from RB Salzburg for £17m, is certainly one to watch and is needed among a defence that looked shaky at times last season.
Sangare is one of the more exciting acquisitions across the whole division and if he delivers on his promise, then the west London club could benefit greatly from his skillset before ultimately cashing in next summer.
Whilst supporters will be disappointed that they didn’t manage to qualify for Europe, the softened fixture list in comparison to their rivals will be to their advantage come the back end of the campaign.
There will have to be an improvement on the attacking process to make up for the huge penalty numbers that they gained last season, something that Andrews will have been hard at work at over the summer.
