Keith Andrews hopes to be the one who wears the trousers at Brentford
At one point it looked like the rag trade would be the beneficiary of Keith Andrews' considerable talents as he modelled his own clothing creations, showing off the more svelte figure he developed later in his career once he had left some bad habits behind him. Some clobbered Andrews for wearing the clobber, but the Dubliner has a thick neck when it comes to absorbing criticism. He will need it again if he is to at least emulate the achievements of Thomas Frank at Brentford, should he be confirmed as their new head coach.
Frank was a big enough loss. The new Tottenham manager taking some key members of the backroom staff, including assistant coaches Justin Cochrane and Chris Haslam and analyst Joe Newton, with him arguably hurt more, but at least it has thinned out the field when it comes to finding a successor.Andrews' ability to pull together and work with a new coaching team will be one of the factors owner Matthew Benham will be weighing up having spoken to him about the job and signalled that he is Frank's probable replacement.
That Andrews hasn't joined the Tottenham exodus is significant in itself; not only does it put him in pole position, but it shows how close he is to Benham who appointed him in the first place only last summer as set-piece coach.
Andrews has maintained Brentford's impressive numbers when it comes to set pieces and even improved them in some areas, though the normally sunny Frank had a slight dig at him when Brentford conceded two goals from set pieces against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup back in December.
There have also been plenty of pats on the back for Andrews' dedication and overall coaching ability, but while Brentford have a culture of appointing from within, it would still be a big leap should they go for Andrews given the level of his coaching experience so far.
Frank was more experienced and had worked for nearly two years as an assistant before he was offered the job. Andrews joined Brentford only back in July and his CV up to that point barely gave an inkling that he was ready to become a Premier League manager. Spells as an assistant coach at MK Dons and on the backroom staff at Sheffield United during Chris Wilder's second spell in management coincided with relegation for those two clubs, while a period as Stephen Kenny's number two with Ireland sandwiched in between wasn't deemed a success either.
Andrews' first spell at MK Dons, where he was captain in his late twenties, was telling in other ways. When I interviewed Andrews there in 2008, he told of how he had warned the then club chairman Pete Winkelman away from certain managerial candidates and encouraged him to appoint Paul Ince, vouching for Ince's credentials when they had played together at Wolves.
Even back then, Andrews was clearly a mover and shaker. After a successful spell at MK Dons, Ince was then appointed manager of Premier League side Blackburn Rovers and brought Andrews with him.
There Andrews continued to reinvent himself, becoming an Ireland international and reuniting with Robbie Keane. Keane and Andrews joined Wolves together at the same time as young teenagers in 1996, along with three other players from Dublin, who fell by the footballing wayside over the years.
While Andrews was briefly made Wolves captain at the age of 20 — one of the youngest ever at the club — he lost his way at Molineux after that because of a costly suspension, injuries and getting caught up for a while in the 'drinking culture' which he described at the time in the club.
Andrews said his friends and family helped him through a 'bad patch', but it is his own drive, determination and self-belief which have been his main assets.
Seeing how the old pros struggled to cope with their life once out of the game sharpened his mind further and he set about getting his coaching badges when he was at MK Dons and also started expanding his portfolio, into TV punditry and helping to start a clothing line.
In the summer of 2010, when Ireland played Italy in a friendly in Belgium, he eyed the sharp-suited opponents before the game, took a look at his team-mates in their Umbro tracksuits and vowed that Ireland wouldn't be upstaged in the sartorial stakes again.
Hence, how his company fitted out the Ireland team for the 2012 European Championships, where Andrews was Ireland's player of the tournament for what was otherwise a disaster for Giovanni Trapattoni's team. When his playing career was petering out, his Sky Sports punditry meant he retained a toe-hold and a presence in the game, while he also got a coaching break as Kenny brought him in to assist with the Ireland under-21s.
Presumably, Brentford haven't sought an Andrews reference from Martin O'Neill or Roy Keane. During his punditry spell in 2017, Andrews did an interview in which he implied O'Neill was so lucky that if he fell in a dog's mess 'he'd still smell of Old Spice'.
The words would quickly be thrown back in his face when Andrews was back in the game coaching a struggling Ireland team: 'Such pontification in the studio hasn't so far achieved the desired effect on the playing field,' claimed O'Neill, while Roy Keane, O'Neill's Ireland assistant, remarked: 'I've heard a lot of bullshitters over the last ten years and Keith Andrews is up there with the best of them.'
Andrews' response to Keane?
'It didn't affect me. When you go into a new job players pretty quickly suss you out, if you are not up to the level.'
Now looks like the acid test for that assertion. As well as the departure of Frank, the highly influential winger and goalscorer Bryan Mbeumo wants away and while Brentford have been market leaders in recruitment both of coaching and playing staff, other Premier League clubs with much bigger budgets are catching up when it comes to making the smart plays.
'We're just a bus stop in Hounslow,' Brentford fans now chant by way of reminding everybody how the club which trains close to Heathrow airport are constantly over-achieving. Next stop will be to see if Keith Andrews is cleared for take-off.
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