Why Brentford will be hoping Scott Hogan’s run continues into 2016/2017

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With seven goals in his last seven games for Brentford at the end of the Championship season, Scott Hogan has managed to put an eighteen-month injury nightmare behind him and propel the Bees to a ninth place finish, but will he be able to maintain his form into the next season.

Hogan’s Brentford career has had a frustrating start, as the player signed from Rochdale in August 2014 suffered two anterior cruciate injuries and missed nearly eighteen months of football.

Forced to watch on as the club reached the play-offs in their first season back in the second tier powered by the 16 goals of fellow striker Andre Gray (since departed to lead Burnley’s Championship success), then miss most of the 2015/2016 season as the Bees’ form fluctuated under three different managers, Hogan has shown remarkable strength of character to battle back to fitness and make a such a powerful impact on his return to first team action.

While mainly used as a substitute during his gradual return to the team, Hogan’s next challenge will be maintaining the fitness and form over a sustained spell in the starting line-up.

As Mark Ogden noted in his Independent profile of the player, Hogan’s career has followed a similar trajectory to Jamie Vardy’s, with the pair having been teammates at FC Halifax, and Brentford fans will be hoping the similarities continue in the future.

Hogan’s introduction to the team largely coincided with Brentford’s late-season revival, which saw them win seven of their final nine games, scoring 24 goals in the process. Both Hogan and Bees manager Dean Smith could be forgiven for wanting the season to continue for another month.

Smith, nominated for the Manager of the Month Award for April, has drastically addressed the defensive failures that saw the team take only seven points in the first three months of 2016.

An Anglo-French defensive unit has developed, with a solid central defensive pairing gradually forming between Harlee Dean and Yoann Barbet following the January departure of James Tarkowski to Burnley, supported by the reliable Jake Bidwell and Maxime Colin at full-back.

With Danish international centre-half Andreas Bjelland due to return from the knee injury that has kept him out since last August, added to the emergence of homegrown talents Josh Clarke and Tom Field, there will be strong defensive options for the Bees next season.

The focus of Brentford’s summer recruitment needs to be on attack, in spite of Hogan’s prolific end to the season.

While Lasse Vibe has claimed a respectable fourteen goals in his first season in English football and has been quietly impressive at times, the Danish forward has struggled to maintain consistency, particularly when playing alone up front, and fellow striker Philipp Hoffman has failed to cement a first team place.

With Liverpool loanee Sergi Canós and Red Bull Salzburg’s Marco Djuricin both returning to their home clubs, the former in particular having shown signs of excellence and scored the goal of the season away at Reading, the Bees’ goal-scoring options are much depleted.

Adding at least one versatile striker, possibly in the form of another young Premier League loanee following the successes of Canós and Alex Pritchard in the last two seasons, is a necessity.

This focus on strengthening in attack is especially important as Player of the Season, Alan Judge, who scored 14 goals this term and was named in the Football League Championship Team of the Season, suffered a broken leg away at Ipswich on 9 April.

Judge’s injury, which robbed the midfielder of the chance to represent the Republic of Ireland at the Euros, will keep him on the sidelines until well into the new season and, while it may increase the likelihood of Brentford retaining his services for another season, the club will be need to ensure his position is covered in his absence.

After finishing the season on such a high and finishing above their West London rivals Fulham and Queens Park Rangers, there is optimism around Griffin Park ahead of the summer break.

With reinforcements to the attack and a fit, in-form Scott Hogan building on his form in the final games of 2015/2016, Brentford will be hoping for a strong start to their third season in the Championship.