Keith Andrews says Brentford head to Merseyside in good shape, with the manager pointing to a settled mood in the camp and the same injury picture as last week before the final Premier League fixture against Liverpool. Rico Henry will not feature, while Fábio Carvalho and Antoni Milambo remain sidelined with ACL injuries.
“The players are in a good place,” Andrews said, after Brentford had their awards night and a chance to get together before the season’s closing stretch. “We had the awards last night – it was nice to get together. We’ve had a good couple of weeks. The season is coming to a close.”
The update matters today because Brentford are entering their last league match with little room left to experiment, yet Andrews is still weighing up how much to change his attack. He said availability is unchanged from last week, and that the team are prepared to be “a little bit unpredictable” with their forward play depending on the players, their form and the opposition.
That flexibility was on show against Crystal Palace on Sunday, when Brentford pushed Dango Ouattara a little bit more narrow and closer to Igor Thiago. Andrews said the pair were meant to come together more as a unit after Kevin Schade was not started last weekend, while Mikkel Damsgaard and Mathi Jensen were also brought a little closer on occasion. “There’s always a little bit of method in the madness, I suppose,” he said.
The tension for Brentford is straightforward: they are healthy enough to keep shaping games, but not fully stocked for a final-day test at Liverpool. Henry’s absence narrows the options, and the long-term injuries to Carvalho and Milambo remove two more names from the picture as Andrews looks for one last performance before the campaign ends.
For Brentford, the message is less about crisis than control. Andrews has a squad he says is in a good place, a run of results and dressing-room momentum to lean on, and just enough tactical freedom to keep Liverpool guessing when the teams meet on Merseyside.
