As fearsome fortresses go, the Gtech Community Stadium is unassuming. Anyone driving past as the A4 becomes the M4 is liable to miss it completely, tucked away among high-rise des-res flats. Its family vibe is hardly Galatasaray’s old Ali Sami Yen either, the team kick off to the not exactly fearsome rabble-rouser Hey Jude and that word “community” is very much to the fore in the PA announcements.

Yet Brentford, the former “bus stop in Hounslow”, have the best home record in this season’s Premier League. Only West Ham, on 28 September, have taken a point, seven teams departing beaten. That the Bees’ away record is an inverse mirror image, their sole point coming at Everton with a 0-0 draw on 23 November, is another story, though probably occurs for much the same reason: all-out attack.

With the Gtech seeing an average of five goals a game this season, it has become the top flight’s home of attacking football. Thomas Frank’s strategy of blitzing from the kick-off, rather than settling into shape and rhythm, bears sweet fruit in terms of unsettling opponents. His team broke a Premier League record in scoring in the opening minute of three consecutive games (against Manchester City, Tottenham and West Ham) earlier this season, almost doing so in a fourth, only for Nathan Collins to wait until the second minute against Wolves.

Those early goals did not translate to results, the first two being away from home, the third the Hammers draw, but an uproarious 5-3 win against Wolves provided a key indicator that the Gtech is the home of goals. Opta calculations suggest only Stamford Bridge in 2009-10, as Chelsea won the Premier League scoring 103, has seen more goals over a season than the Gtech is set to witness in 2024-25.

On Saturday Nottingham Forest, in fourth, become the highest placed visitors in the league this so far season. That Bournemouth are the sole side Brentford have hosted in the current top half of the table suggests their home supremacy may be assailable.

In 2024 Frank has been linked with Premier League vacancies at Manchester United and Liverpool. He is understood to have lost out to Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham. As Brentford play out a fourth Premier League season, a huge achievement in terms of scope and budget, the biggest clubs are thus far unwilling to take the Dane from where he appears comfortable working the statistical modelling the owner, Matthew Benham, prescribes.

View image in fullscreen

Benham says little on the record but last year revealed a smidgeon of his philosophy during a short interview with his club’s website: “People overestimate how much is the data and underestimate how much is improved decision making and structures – like how do ideas get implemented, how do you use data and everything else you have available to you to make decisions.”

Frank combines football-man nous and being ultra competitive – he rarely admits his team deserved to lose – with an adaptability to modern, US-style front-office stats. He, Benham and Phil Giles, the director of football, have decided attack is the best form of defence, the low quality of opposing Premier League defenders something to be exploited. Brentford’s influence and innovation are recognised. The Arsenal set-piece guru Nicolas Jover, now celebrated by a mural outside the Emirates Stadium, and the Manchester United coach Andreas Georgson worked as specialists within Frank’s coaching team. Giles has been linked with replacing Edu as Arsenal’s sporting director.

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football

after newsletter promotion

“We wanted to add layers and try to be even more controlled offensively, but to make more breakthroughs and crosses and to play forward,” Frank said after Newcastle were beaten 4-2 on 7 December. Last season Premier League status was endangered by injuries, and the striker Ivan Toney’s betting ban. With Toney gone permanently, Brentford have become more potent, with Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa on 10 and nine league goals respectively. Eight of Mbeumo’s have come at the Gtech, the same for Wissa. Those players, both on the wanted lists at bigger clubs, provide a security blanket that fellow attack-minded coaches such as Kieran McKenna at Ipswich and Russell Martin, sacked by Southampton, have lacked, further testament to Brentford’s scouting and planning.

With seven assists, the chief supplier is Mikkel Damsgaard, a classic Brentford stats-based signing, bought from Sampdoria and now replicating his excellent performances with Denmark at Euro 2020 but also playing with rheumatoid arthritis. “I am just running on the medicine now to remove the risk that something could happen,” he said in November, words that embody the fragility and fearlessness behind the Brentford collective’s success story.