Andy Gogia feels that the groundwork for a successful 2016/17 season has been laid after coming through his first season in English football. The 24-year-old German winger joined Brentford from 3.Liga side Hallescher FC last summer and was a regular pick in the opening weeks of the season. However form and fitness saw his opportunities limited after that as he made 14 appearances for The Bees in his first Sky Bet Championship season.

Andy featured in three of Brentford’s last four matches of the campaign and the former German Youth International feels that shows he is getting used to the demands of English football: “I think that I have improved a lot this year because it is a little different to Germany and other leagues,” said Andy, speaking to Bees Player at the club’s Player of the Year dinner earlier this month. “The mentality is a little different. With myself, Konstantin Kerschbaumer, Marco Djuricin, and Philipp Hofmann it was a different league for us to learn. We needed the players and all the staff to help us. It was really good to be with them and they helped us a lot.

“The start was alright because I played a lot. Then the coach and the system changed so I didn’t play a lot of games but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being with the team and we finished ninth in the table. It was a good season and next season will be better. This season we had a lot of new players and a lot of foreign players so, now we know each other, we can kick on next season and make next season better than this one.”

When he joined last May, Andy described England as ‘the mother of football’ and he said that nothing that he had seen in his time with Brentford so far had done anything to change his opinion of that.

“Football is like a religion here and I love that,” said Andy. “The games, with the supporters, are so different and I enjoy that. The derbies against Queens Park Rangers, Fulham, and Charlton Athletic are really good. They were really good games and the atmosphere was really good too.”