Brentford director of football Phil Giles stressed the need for long-term thinking at the club’s fans’ forum last month.

Full-backs Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey both missed the majority of last season due to injury and are yet to appear this term, and Giles admitted the pair’s absence has presented the Bees with a difficult recruitment challenge.

“We know at some point they’ll come back, so what we don’t want to do is spend a huge amount of our budget on an area that, with three or four months of patience, will be resolved anyway,” said Giles.

“It’s much better, in my opinion, if you take the left-back situation, to sign a young English player who’s a big talent for the future [Jayden Meghoma], rather than spend a huge amount of money on a player who only presents you with a problem four months down the line.

“Last year, in January, we took Sergio Reguilón on loan. We had the conversation in the summer: is he a player we’d like to try and sign again?

“We also had a chat with Sergio at the end of last season. But even in his head, he knew that he would have Rico as competition.

“It’s not an easy fix. You can’t buy a player to solve a problem - you’ve got to think long term and be as patient as possible.”

Giles continued: “Thomas [Frank’s] job is to focus on now, whereas my job is to ensure we’re in a good place long term.

“Jayden Meghoma will be great for us long term – potentially medium term. He’s already started two games for us, which we won.

“I’m really comfortable with what we’ve got in terms of the defence.

“Thomas wants the best team available and wants to win every game, and I do too. That’s the main thing.

“The actual difference it makes not having a first-choice left-back available is probably not as big as we think.

“Over the last 18 months, while Rico has been out, we’ve won games with [Vitaly] Janelt, Kris Ajer and Keane Lewis-Potter playing left back.

“Sepp van den Berg, Mads Roerslev, Saman Ghoddos [have played full-back]. We’ve been able to fill in. It’s not a major problem in my opinion.”

Head coach Thomas Frank also praised his players’ adaptability during the event at Gtech Community Stadium.

“Only three or four clubs in the world have unlimited money,” he said.

“We’ve had two left-footed players out at the same for too long - that’s where we’ve been a bit unlucky. We can’t just buy a new one for £30 million.

“We want to invest in other areas of the team that can make us better in the longer term.

“It’s annoying that we can’t play our best team, but I agree with Phil that we have found more about our players and where they can fill in.

“We now know that Sepp van den Berg can play both full-back positions, and we’ve found Keane as well.

“Knowing this means we can use our money in the best possible way in the future.”

Catch up on our fans’ forum here. Watch as head coach Thomas Frank, director of football Phil Giles and chief executive Jon Varney reflect on the season so far and share their ambitions for the future