Brentford’s final away game of the season takes them to north London to face Tottenham Hotspur in front of the BT Sport cameras on Saturday lunchtime.

Victory over West Ham United last Sunday guaranteed Thomas Frank’s side a top-10 finish in the Premier League.

The Bees head into this weekend’s game just four points behind seventh-placed Spurs with two left to play.

For Tottenham, it’s been another whirlwind season which will end with Spurs finishing outside the Champions League places, following a run of just two wins in eight since parting company with Antonio Conte.

The opposition

Spurs ready for summer refresh

It was after Tottenham let a 3-1 lead slip away at bottom-of-the-table Southampton in mid-March that frustrations at Spurs’ indifferent season finally got to then-head coach Antonio Conte.

In a blistering 10-minute post-match interview following the 3-3 draw, where he declared: “We are 11 players that go into the pitch. I see selfish players, I see players that don't want to help each other and don't put their heart.”

That reaction saw Conte lose his job a week later but also laid bare the annoyance which had been building up in the Italian as Spurs’ season unravelled.

A seven-game unbeaten run to begin the campaign, which saw Spurs score 17 goals, had both sides of north London dreaming that this could be the season it all came together.

However, a 3-1 defeat to neighbours Arsenal at the start of October began a run which would see Spurs lose seven of their next 13 league games. Back-to-back defeats in mid-January by Arsenal, and then Manchester City, put Spurs firmly out of any title conversations.

Hopes of ending their 15-year trophy drought also disappeared in the Spring, with an FA Cup fifth-round exit to Sheffield United and a Champions League round-of-16 defeat to AC Milan.

That European exit came ten days before Conte’s Southampton rant, but things have got even worse for Spurs since then.

Fourth when Conte left, Spurs won just once in four matches under acting head coach Cristian Stellini. The final game of his time in charge was the 6-1 mauling at Newcastle which saw Spurs five down inside 20 minutes.

Ryan Mason was then handed the reigns until the end of the season, but he too has recorded just a single victory in four games in charge, as Spurs’ slide away from the European places has continued.

For all Conte’s talk of 11 players in a team, one of those players is free from any blame for Tottenham’s predicament.

It has been another superb season for Harry Kane in front of goal. Tottenham’s talisman has 27 Premier League goals to his name in a season which has taken him past Sergio Aguero, Andy Cole and Wayne Rooney, up into second on the Premier League’s all-time goalscorers list.

Spurs’ 65 Premier League goals in the fifth-most in this season’s top flight but their major issues have been at the other end. You have to go down the table to Bournemouth in 14th to find a side who have conceded more - Spurs have conceded two or more in 19 of their 36 league games so far.

With no Champions League football to look forward to, a new manager to find, and uncertainty surrounding several members of the Spurs squad, not least Kane, it looks set to be a very interesting summer in N17.

The gameplan

With football.london's Rob Guest

Rob Guest, Tottenham Hotspur correspondent for football.london, discusses Spurs' difficult campaign, their managerial changes this term and the future of talisman Harry Kane.

"Against Crystal Palace, it was a 4-4-2 out of possession, which switched to 3-4-3 in possession, with Ben Davies - who was left-back in the back four - pushing up to left wing-back and Emerson Royal - who was right-back - would move across and become a right-sided centre-back.

"What we saw for the majority of the season under Antonio Conte and Cristian Stellini was a 3-4-3, and I think Ryan Mason has been showing his tactical nous with that change, which is what you could see on Saturday."

Team news

Strakosha available for Tottenham clash

Goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha has not been in the squad since the defeat to Wolves in April, but will return for the trip to north London.

Young keeper Matthew Cox has been on the bench in recent weeks, and Strakosha's availability comes at the perfect time for him, as he can now head to the Under-20 World Cup with England alongside fellow Bee Daniel Oyegoke, after the duo were selected by Ian Foster for the tournament in Argentina.

Thomas Frank confirmed that everyone else from our win over West Ham last Sunday is available, while Keane Lewis-Potter (knee), Pontus Jansson (hamstring) and Christian Norgaard (Achilles) will miss the remainder of the season.

The manager

Ryan Mason

Ryan Mason has spent all but two of the past 23 years contracted to Tottenham.

A gifted midfielder, Mason came through Spurs academy to make his debut in 2008. Following a host of loan spells in the EFL, Mason made his Tottenham breakthrough in 2014, going onto play 53 Premier League games over the following two campaigns.

An England cap in 2015 followed, before he made a club-record move to Hull City in the summer of 2016.

However, tragedy struck the following January when Mason suffered a fractured skull in a match against Chelsea. After a prolonged treatment and on the advice of medical specialists, he retired from professional football in February 2018.

He returned to Spurs that summer as an academy coach. When Jose Mourinho was sacked in April 2021, Mason took over as interim head coach and, at 29, became the youngest coach in Premier League history.

He then joined Antonio Conte’s first-team coaching staff in November of that year, being re-appointed as the club's acting head coach when the Italian departed in March.

Last meeting

Brentford 2 Tottenham Hotspur 2 (Premier League, 26 December 2022)

The Premier League returned with a bang as Brentford and Tottenham shared four goals at Gtech Community Stadium on Boxing Day.

After 47 days without a match in TW8 due to the World Cup, it looked like the perfect homecoming for Brentford fans as Vitaly Janelt and Ivan Toney fired the home side into a two-goal lead with 55 minutes on the clock.

However, Harry Kane pulled one back just before the midway point of the second half and, six minutes later, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg completed the comeback with a side-footed finish.

Kane nearly grabbed a late winner, which would have been very harsh on a well-organised and resolute Brentford side, but his header came back off the bar.

Match officials

Bees looking for first away win under Gillett

Referee: Jarred Gillett

Assistants: Simon Long and Mark Scholes

Fourth official: Thomas Bramall

VAR: Andy Madley

Assistant VAR: Sian Massey-Ellis

Born on the Gold Coast, Australia, highly rated A-League referee Jarred Gillett emigrated to England in 2019 to study at Liverpool John Moore’s University, specialising in research on children with Cerebral Palsy.

He went onto make his EFL officiating debut in April of that same year.

Gillett made history in September 2021 becoming the first overseas official to referee a Premier League match when he took charge of Watford v Newcastle United.

All three of Brentford’s wins with Gillett in the middle have come at the Gtech Community Stadium against Bournemouth: a 2-1 Sky Bet Championship success in December 2020, the following May’s 3-1 Play-Off semi-final victory, and then this season’s 2-0 Premier League win.

On top of those games, he’s taken our 2-1 home defeat to Norwich City and a pair of draws last season, against Leicester City and Chelsea.

Tottenham Hotspur 22/23

408 fouls - 6th in Premier League

74 yellow cards - 8th in Premier League

3 red cards - 2nd in Premier League