Brentford's summer recruitment drive looks to be paying early dividends after a dominant 6-1 win over Birmingham City in the second round of the Carabao Cup, with new signing Jaidon Anthony stealing the headlines on his full debut.
The emphatic victory at St Andrews came just days after Brentford's impressive 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur, and manager Keith Andrews was quick to highlight how little separates his starting options these days. "There is a huge narrative around cup games with coaches making changes, but with the squad we have, there are fine margins between who plays and doesn't play," Andrews said after the match.
That depth has been a point of emphasis for Brentford this summer, following a campaign in which the club came close to securing European qualification despite being widely tipped for relegation at the start of Andrews' tenure. One of the key factors behind their late-season struggles was a lack of impact from the bench — only Manchester City produced fewer goals from substitutes than Brentford's tally of three last season.
To address that shortfall, Brentford moved to sign Anthony from Burnley and striker Callum Wilson from West Ham during the transfer window. Both made their first starts for the club against Birmingham and did not take long to make an impression. Wilson, still just as sharp in front of goal at 34, opened the scoring inside six minutes as he continues his pursuit of a century of Premier League goals. But it was Anthony who truly stole the show, registering a hat-trick of assists as Brentford cruised to a comfortable win.
While Wilson brings experience and a proven scoring instinct to the squad, it is Anthony's arrival that could have the more significant impact on Brentford's season. Last year, the Bees often had to rely on the inconsistent form and fitness of loan signing Reiss Nelson to provide competition on the wing. Anthony, by contrast, arrives with genuine ambitions of establishing himself as a regular starter.
His end product in the final third was a standout feature of last season, with eight league goals and four assists to his name. Against Birmingham, he translated that quality directly into results, delivering three crosses from the right flank that led to three second-half goals. He might have added a fourth assist had fellow new arrival Jannik Schuster converted his headed effort from a similar delivery.
Anthony's overall performance underlined his influence on the game — no other player created more chances, completed more dribbles, or had more touches inside the opposition box than the 26-year-old winger.
His emergence could prove crucial for Brentford's ambitions of again challenging for European qualification. In particular, his form is likely to push Dango Ouattara, who enjoyed a solid debut season in west London with seven goals and eight assists in 32 Premier League appearances. However, Ouattara endured a three-month goalless run between February and May, a period in which Brentford won just twice in eleven matches.
With competition for places intensifying, Andrews' comments after the Birmingham rout suggest that no starting spot is guaranteed this season — a shift that could prove vital as Brentford look to build on last term's near-miss and mount a sustained push for continental football.
Based on reporting from Standard Sport (football).