While many Brentford supporters jubilantly saluted the Bees’ 5-1 win over Luton Town on 20 April - the victory that all but secured their Premier League status for another season - the result (albeit emphatic) and its repercussions were never going to be celebrated too enthusiastically by head coach Thomas Frank.
He may have seemed in a joyous mood with his players, in front of the supporters, after the comfortable visit to Kenilworth Road, which practically ensured his team wouldn’t drop down a division, but Frank does not see merely remaining as a top-flight team as something to shout too loudly about.
Sitting down after the final game of the season, he states: “Yes, every single time we have a season in the Premier League, it's a success - but we just always want more. Instead of avoiding something, we want to achieve something.
“It's never been about survival, I just don't like that word, I think it’s negative. I need to find another phrase that's better… ‘staying up’ or ‘another season’.
“People talk about the 40-point mark but that's never been an indicator for us, we’ve never looked at that.
“We want to be an asset to the division. We want to improve, we want to develop, and we want to constantly try to become better.”
As always, that was the aim last summer: to improve on the previous campaign. However, finishing ninth in the Premier League was going to be difficult, perhaps impossible, to better.
As well as building on the Bees’ league position, slowly adapting and developing the style of play - or “adding layers”, as Frank labels it - was also a target for the 2023/24 season.
“We had a big focus on adding those layers at the beginning of the season,” the head coach explains. “We wanted more control and the only purpose for that was to create more chances.
“The whole pre-season and then the first 12 or so games, we had a big rise in those numbers, which tells us that we were doing something right.
“And then the injuries started to hit us, so it was more difficult to hit those heights.”
That is, perhaps, a slight understatement.
Brentford picked up 21 injuries, which has seen players miss 255 days due to unavailability - numbers that completely usurp some of the more fortunate sides in the Premier League.
And those figures don’t include the absence of last season’s 20-goal man Ivan Toney, who only returned in January due to his eight-month ban for breaching Football Association betting rules.
It wasn’t just the amount or severity of injuries either, it was the players who suffered them.
First-choice full-backs Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey have been missing since September and October, respectively; Ethan Pinnock - who the Bees didn't win without - was out for nine games, captain Christian Nørgaard missed five; Bryan Mbeumo was out for three months, while Kevin Schade didn’t play for 10.
Ben Mee, Kristoffer Ajer, Mathias Jensen and Josh Dasilva also spent time on the sidelines, leaving the west Londoners, at times, with a physio room busier than the dressing room itself.
Frank reflects: "We've been unlucky, in general. We’ve had some of the most and longest injuries - and we also have one of the smallest budgets.
“We have had so many contact injuries, we had 11 surgeries - we'd normally have two to three, which is insane.
“All of that added together makes the performances and the season we have had in the Premier League even more impressive.
“One thing we actually did very well is that we had almost no muscle injuries, no soft tissue injuries, very few hamstring injuries compared to other teams. We are very good there, and that's the thing where the medical staff and the training we have done are still at a good level.
“It’s more about the way we get players back and how quick we get them back, that is the thing, I think.
“But if you look at the performances and the xG numbers, for and against, as well as plenty of other stats, we have performed well into the top ten.
“Those numbers compared to our actual position is probably a little bit down to quality, a little bit down to margins again, maybe just coincidences in football.
“I think we still had a good season. We could still have had more, even with the injuries we had.”
He adds: “Looking at a club of our stature, we can be pleased with every season in the Premier League and never, ever forget that - we can never take that for granted.
“This season was a small reality check, in that regard.
“Yes, we were ninth last season, wow, we almost got into Europe, 59 points, some fantastic football at times.
“But then, because it’s such a competitive league, if you just drop on the wrong side of the margins or you get some injuries, it's totally different circumstances.”
Too many times this season, Brentford did drop on the wrong side of those margins, which resulted in a 16th-place finish in the Premier League.
19 defeats this term compared to last year’s nine is a key indicator of how results haven’t quite gone the Bees’ way. However, looking back at the campaign, Frank is keen to take the positives - an underrated attribute for a head coach, and one that the Dane possesses in abundance.
He smiles, wryly: “I say, ‘We win or we learn’ - there's been a lot of learning this season, unfortunately!
“You tend to learn a little bit more when you don't have ultimate success, because you think less about, ‘Ah, everything went well and we are so good’.
“Then the flip side is that, when we lost more football matches than we wanted to this season, you can't think, ‘We’re sh*t, you’re sh*t, I’m sh*t’.
“You need something in between, probably.”
He continues: “I think we had three bad performances this year, overall. There have been spells in games where we have been bad, but three bad performances.
“They were Everton at home, Sheffield United away, and West Ham away. Those three performances were bad... bad.
"Three out of 38, that's quite good. So, in that way, there's a good stability in the squad when it comes to working hard.”
Frank highlights those three performances as the Bees’ worst this campaign, but, maybe surprisingly, the head coach doesn’t mention them when asked for his lowest point of the season.
Instead, it is both games against Manchester United that Frank winces at the thought of recalling.
The Bees were minutes away from taking three points away from Old Trafford before Scott McTominay’s stoppage-time brace left them with zero; and the hosts racked up 31 shots against the Red Devils at Gtech Community Stadium - as well as taking 85 touches in the opposition box - but only picked up a point.
Frank recollects those two games against Erik ten Hag’s side: “I know in the home game we got a draw but, because we were so dominant, the fact that we didn't win that game irritated me.
“The late goals and some defeats, in general, are the tough bit to deal with, no doubt about that. It’s a good thing that I'm quite a positive guy, so the next day, more likely than not, I’ll be able to look at the positive things.
“But, in the moment, it is incredibly difficult, almost impossible, to try to pull yourself together and control yourself. With some late goals, it is just so difficult to take, it's painful.
“But, at the end of the day, hey, it's football! You need to crack on and keep going.”
And, on that note, it was about time something more positive was discussed: Frank’s favourite moments of the season.
He ponders and responds: “Probably the Nottingham Forest game. It was a good win, a big win, Ivan coming back, he scores, and we win. It was a good day.
“You can always look back at games and see them as important for different reasons.
“The Burnley game, 3-0, that was a key game at that stage when we needed a good win. And we were so good in that game, we were so dominant, in so many ways.
“Also, the Wolves away game. We were conceding a few too many goals and then we had a clean sheet and won fair and square there - I thought that was very impressive.
“Of course, I would say Luton game as well, not because then you can say we have another season in the Premier League, but more the way we did it. We did something to Luton that no other team did to them at Kenilworth Road. That was one of the performances I was most satisfied with.
“Another one of my favourite moments was the first goal against Bournemouth recently, I thought that was fantastic. That was a very good example of how Mark Flekken has developed throughout the season, when he set Yoane Wissa to play in Bryan Mbeumo.
“Mark didn’t have a straightforward start. I don’t read those sorts of things, but I’ve been told about what people, some fans, were saying.
“But he's done very well to establish himself in the Premier League, a new league, new country, everything, and he’s done much better than the criticism he’s received at times.”
Asked where the Sheffield United fixture at the Gtech ranks and how important that was, he adds: “I knew we probably had to win - but I never say it is a must-win game to the players. It’s just about focusing on the game the same as any other and trying to have that normal process too.
“Of course, we know some games have more on it and you just feel it and the players feel it, you don't have to be verbal about it.
“That wasn’t actually our best performance, but we did the job.”
And doing the job, not just in that game but across the whole season, means Brentford will be a Premier League side for the fourth season in a row heading into the 2024/25 campaign.
The targets?
“Season by season, I hope that we will have even more control in games, with the purpose of creating more chances, while continuing to add those layers,” says Frank.
"We have an exciting club, an exciting squad with good players, players that also have much more in them to go to the next level - players like Mikkel Damsgaard, Keane Lewis-Potter, Kevin Schade, Aaron Hickey, Nathan Collins, that’s just five examples.
“Wissa ended the season on 12 Premier League goals and Bryan had 15 goal contributions in the Premier League, even though his season was disrupted by injury.
“We have a new striker in Igor Thiago coming to the club, too.
“For all those reasons, and many more, I’m feeling very positive.”
That positivity will almost be guaranteed if Brentford can fall on the right side of those fine margins more often than not next season.
Frank mentioned the “football gods” being against his side at times this term, so there’s no harm in praying to them for some good fortune heading into the 2024/25 campaign…