Dean Smith believes that every area needs to be improved if Brentford are to achieve their aim and challenge for top honours in the Sky Bet Championship next season. The 45-year-old, who took over at Griffin Park in November, guided The Bees to a ninth placed finish last season after a fine end to the campaign which saw his side pick up 22 points from a possible 27 in April and May. However, despite that strong finish, the former Walsall boss believes nothing can be taken for granted and that a lot of work still has to be done if Brentford are to challenge at the top end of the table next season.
“There are a lot of meetings planned over the next week or two,” said Dean, speaking to Bees Player. “There are recruitment meetings about getting players in which we have regularly anyway. We will have staff meetings because it is important for me that when the players return they can see an improvement. We need to improve everything. You don’t rest on that momentum from winning games, we have to keep improving. I want to go and challenge again. I want to finish first and it would be a disservice to everybody if you didn’t want to finish first. We know how difficult it will be as there are some big clubs coming down from the Premier League. We have a great belief in what we do and how we do it, and the group of players that we have got. We will look to add quality to that and hopefully we can have a more consistent season. If we can do that then we will be challenging and that is what we need to do.”
At the end of a long 46 game league campaign Dean said that it was important the players got their feet up and rested in the early stages of pre-season. The former Leyton Orient defender held individual meetings with all the players after last weekend’s fine 5-1 win over Huddersfield Town, which brought down the curtain on the season. While Dean impressed on the players the importance of rest he also made sure that they were in no doubt about what was expected when they returned to pre-season training at the end of June.
“After Huddersfield I had all the players in on Monday,” said Dean. “I did individual reports with the players and gave them development plans for the summer. We spoke about what is expected of them and what is expected when they get back. For me they need to have two weeks rest straight away and get a break but then they have to be back into it again. If we want to be challenging then, come the first day of pre-season, the players have to be ready and they know that. They have been given targets and they were told that if those targets weren’t met they wouldn’t be training with me, they would be training with the Development Squad. That is how it has to be at any football club.”
Dean also gave his reaction to the news that Brentford had restructured their Academy and would no longer be part of the Elite Player Performance Plan. The former Head of Youth Development at Walsall said that he always felt the Academy structure brought in under EPPP would disadvantage smaller clubs adding that, with the abolition of Emergency Loans from next season, it is important clubs have a pool of older players to call on when needed.
“I have a background in Youth Development and I know how important that is to a football club,” said Dean. “When the Elite Player Performance Plan came in I was Head of Youth Development at Walsall and I feared for clubs like Walsall and Brentford because I thought it was going to aid the bigger clubs to cherry pick the players from the smaller clubs. It was only a matter of time before clubs looked at it differently and we are now doing that. Time will tell if we can produce players that way but we had to go and do something. The Emergency Loan system has also gone now so if we have an injury crisis like we did last season you will need those older players. Without a loan system you need an elite squad system that you can grab from.”