Plenty for Thomas Frank to relish after Ivan Toney’s England call-up

Given Brentford had not produced a player for England’s senior side since 1939, it was no surprise that Thomas Frank sought to squeeze every drop of satisfaction from Ivan Toney’s call-up. “I think this is a much bigger moment for Brentford than people understand, especially if you’ve been here for a long time,” he said. “Just 15 years ago we were bottom of League Two, we played MK Dons at home and lost 3-0 in front of 4,000 fans. Now we get our first England international in 83 years and we are playing our second season in the Premier League.”

It is another milestone and the latest evidence that Brentford’s top-flight adventure is no passing fancy. There were eyes on Frank’s team as the season began: it was reasonable to wonder whether, without the wiles of Christian Eriksen, they would revert to the unit that had begun to struggle badly after such a thrilling start to 2021-22. But they look entirely comfortable in their skins and there will be some symbolism on Sunday in the visit of Arsenal, whose humbling on the opening night of last term lit a fire of possibility in west London.

Nobody relishes a visit to Brentford Community Stadium, a tight and angular venue with good acoustics that is relatively rare among newly built stadiums in instilling a strong sense of place. “I think Brentford has given us a lot of arguments in the last year, two years, to really believe that you’re going to go there and have a big battle,” Mikel Arteta said on Friday. “You’re going to suffer if you want to go there and get the three points out of that stadium. I think they are very clear on that and we have many examples.”

There are two in particular from the past five weeks. Perhaps Manchester United’s capitulation in August will come to