Brentford has played 34 seasons in the divisions covered here since 1992/93: 5 in the Premier League, 8 in the Championship, 18 in League One and 3 in League Two. It has been in the Premier League since 2021/22 (5 seasons), after 7 seasons in the Championship. Its best finish was 9th in the Premier League, in 2022/23. Its biggest climb took five seasons: from 14th in League Two in 2007/08 to 3rd in League One in 2012/13. It has been promoted 4 times and relegated 3 times.
Brentford
2025/26: 9th in the Premier League · 2026/27: Premier League
How high can Brentford realistically go?
Based on finishing 9th in the Premier League in 2025/26
About 1 in 6
Of the 60 times a club finished 8th to 12th in the Premier League between 2004/05 and 2015/16, 10 reached the top four within ten seasons.
10 of 60 (17%); likely range 3%–33%, 24 different clubs.
| Reached the top six within ten seasons | about 3 in 10 19 of 60; range 14%–49% |
| Stayed up for all of the next five seasons | about 6 in 10 51 of 85; range 45%–73% |
Brentford itself: 5 of the last 10 seasons in the Premier League.
Taking its wage bill into account
Of clubs in a similar position with a wage bill like Brentford's — the 18th highest of 36 in the top two divisions in 2024/25, 1.0 times the average — this share went on to:
| Reached the top four within five seasons | about 1 in 9 range 0%–25% |
| Stayed in the top flight for all of the next five seasons | about 6 in 10 range 31%–82% |
How is this worked out?
A model fitted on every club-season with a published wage bill (England from 2011/12, France from 2008/09) relates each goal to two things: where the club finished and how its wage bill compared with the season's average. Five-year goals are used because the wage records are too recent for ten-year ones. We checked the model on clubs it had not seen: adding the wage bill makes the figures more accurate for most goals, and where it does not, the page says so. The range comes from refitting the model on clubs drawn at random with replacement. Like every figure here, it describes clubs like this one, not a forecast for this club; wage bills include all staff, not only players. This model was added after the registered tests and is descriptive, not one of them.
How do we know?
We took every season since 2004/05 in which a club finished in the same part of the same league, and followed each club forward. The figure is the share that reached each goal. Ten-year goals use finishes from 2004/05 to 2015/16, five-year goals from 2004/05 to 2020/21, so every case has had the full time to play out; results run to the end of 2025/26.
It describes what happened to clubs in this position, not a forecast for one club. A club with much more money or history than is usual for its position has better chances than the figure suggests, which is why the club's own record is shown underneath.
The likely range is a 95% interval worked out by resampling clubs rather than seasons, because the same club often appears several times. It is wide where only a few clubs have been in a position, and two leagues whose ranges overlap may not really differ. Reserve teams such as Barcelona B or Real Madrid Castilla are left out of these counts, because they cannot be promoted into their first team's division.
Counts: reached the top four within ten seasons: 10 of 60; reached the top six within ten seasons: 19 of 60; stayed up for all of the next five seasons: 51 of 85.
The story so far
Final position each seasonRinged dots are titles
How to read this chart
Every club in the divisions covered is placed on one ladder each season: the champions are 1st, and the top club of the second division comes straight after the bottom club of the first. Shaded bands are the divisions. Hover over or tap a dot for the season.
34seasons since 1992/93
5seasons in the Premier League
0league titles
0top-four finishes
4promotions
3relegations
Against the money
Finished 5 places above its money
Over 10 seasons, Brentford finished on average 5.1 places higher than clubs with the same wage bill usually finish. The gap is too large to be put down to chance. It finished above its money in 9 of 10 seasons with published figures.
£131mwage bill, 2024/25
18thhighest of 36 clubs with published accounts
10thfinish in the Premier League, 2024/25
Where Brentford finishedWhere its wage bill normally finishes
Season by season
| Season | Finish | Wage bill | Wage rank | Places above its money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 10th, Premier League | £131m | 18th of 36 | +3.7 |
| 2023/24 | 16th, Premier League | £114m | 17th of 36 | -1.9 |
| 2022/23 | 9th, Premier League | £99m | 19th of 39 | +5.7 |
| 2021/22 | 13th, Premier League | £68m | 20th of 38 | +7.6 |
| 2020/21 | 3rd, Championship | £41m | 22nd of 37 | +3.6 |
| 2019/20 | 3rd, Championship | £26m | 31st of 39 | +11.4 |
| 2018/19 | 11th, Championship | £19m | 35th of 37 | +4.2 |
| 2016/17 | 10th, Championship | £15m | 33rd of 33 | +4.9 |
| 2015/16 | 9th, Championship | £18m | 32nd of 36 | +5.1 |
| 2014/15 | 5th, Championship | £18m | 31st of 38 | +6.4 |
How do we know?
For every season, we compare each club's wage bill with the average in the top two divisions, and work out the finish that wage bill usually brings, allowing for differences between seasons and assuming a bigger wage bill never lowers the expected finish. The gap between that and the actual finish, averaged over the seasons, is the figure above. An overall verdict needs at least eight seasons, and a signed number is given only when the gap is clearly larger than chance.
Wage bills are the staff costs in each club's statutory accounts at Companies House (all staff, not only players), read without any language model and checked against the note's own components and the next year's accounts. Seasons where two readings disagree by more than 2% are left out.
On average, most of a big over-performance fades: clubs that finished at least four places above their money (on average 6.4 places) were +2.0 places the next season, so about 69% of it disappeared and the rest persisted. Some clubs beat their money season after season. It mixes good management, luck and resources the measure cannot see, so it is not a score for how well a club is run.
Clubs with a similar path
Clubs whose finishing positions over the last 15 seasons were closest to Brentford's, with recent seasons counting more.
In England
BournemouthEngland · 6th in the Premier League, 2025/26Nottingham ForestEngland · 16th in the Premier League, 2025/26FulhamEngland · 11th in the Premier League, 2025/26Leeds UnitedEngland · 14th in the Premier League, 2025/26
Elsewhere in Europe
VfL BochumGermany · 9th in 2. Bundesliga, 2025/26Union BerlinGermany · 11th in the Bundesliga, 2025/261. FC HeidenheimGermany · 17th in the Bundesliga, 2025/26
Compare Brentford with another club
Sources
- Final tables to 2025/26. Top-flight positions follow the official classification, including head-to-head tie-breaks and point deductions. Lower-division positions before 2025/26 are worked out from match results and can differ from official tables where points were deducted.
- Relegations include dropping out of the divisions covered.
- All figures can be downloaded on the data page. Spotted a mistake? Report it with a source.