Dasilva signs new Brentford contract

Brentford midfielder Josh Dasilva has extended his stay with the Premier League club by signing a new one-year contract, with the option of a further 12 months.

Former Arsenal player Dasilva, 25, joined the Bees in 2018.

He featured in 36 of Brentford’s 38 Premier League games in 2022-23 but he has been limited to just five appearances in all competitions this season and has not played since the end of January following surgery on a knee injury.

“Josh has been so unlucky with injuries in recent seasons and hasn’t played anything like the number of matches he’d have wanted to,” said director of football Phil Giles.

“This makes him and us even more determined to get him back to full health – he has shown amazing mental strength and resilience to take this latest setback in his stride.

“At his best, Josh is a very good Premier League player with attributes that are hard to find elsewhere. I’m sure he’ll be back playing at some point in the 2024-25 season and we can’t wait for that to happen.”

1. Brentford v Newcastle: Pick of the statspublished at 18:00 16 May

   18:00 16 May

   • Brentford have lost each of their past four Premier League games against Newcastle, while they have only faced Crystal Palace more in the competition without ever winning (six) than against the Magpies (five).

   • Newcastle have won both of their Premier League away games against Brentford – only against Crystal Palace have they ever won their first three on the road in the competition (first four).

   • Brentford have alternated between winning (three) and losing (two) of their final league games in each of the past five seasons – beating Manchester City 1-0 last season.

   • Newcastle have only lost their final league game in one of the past nine seasons (W7 D1), going down 3-1 at home to Liverpool in 2019-20. Frank on ‘perfect football life’ with Bees, VAR and Toney futurepublished at 16:39 16 May

     16:39 16 May

     Brentford manager Thomas Frank has been speaking to the media before the Bees’ final Premier League game of the season against Newcastle United on Sunday (16:00 BST kick-off).

     Here are the key headlines from his news conference:

     • Reflecting on Brentford’s third season at Premier League level, Frank said: “Every year that you are in the Premier League is success for a club of our stature. I just hate saying it because we want so much more; we want to be assets to the league, we want to dream big, we want to do something special.”

     • He added: “I am an optimistic person, I want to dream big. You never want to settle for staying in the league, but the reality is it’s a tough league and every year you do the minimum [stay up], it is a success.”

     • Frank said he has the “perfect football life” at Brentford. “We are not Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool or a club of that size that competes for titles, so it’s a different club. But there are so many good things here, so many structures, processes and people that make this the best possible place for a lot of people to work at.”

     • Asked if he feels he can achieve his personal ambitions at Brentford, Frank said: “I can’t see why not. Ambition is many things – you never know what will happen. Maybe I’ll stay here for the rest of my time in football. Am I going to another club in the future? Maybe. You never know. What I know is I’m very happy here.”

     • Frank continued: “Ambition is how can you make the perfect club? How can we try to maybe win something? It’s probably odds against to win the title, but you can win other things. How can you beat the odds and maybe one year qualify for Europe? I don’t want to set aims, because if you put aims out there, you [reporters] will ask me! But we want to win the next game and we are very ambitious.”

     • Asked about an upcoming vote about the use of VAR in the Premier League, Frank said: “I can’t see us going back. It’s not perfect. Hopefully it continues to be improved and better every season. The benefit of it is still to get the clear mistakes out of the picture. There are borderline [decisions] and when you’re on the wrong side, you can feel it’s against you. But if you have a little sense of reality, probably a lot of times you can see it’s a 50-50, but we all tend to be slightly biased towards our own situation.”

     • On the future of striker Ivan Toney, who has been linked with a summer transfer: “Right now he’s a Brentford player. Maybe he’s a Brentford player next year. I’d like to keep him. What he’s contributed has been extremely important. There are many [club legends] in our history – it’s difficult to compare people 50 years ago and now – but I think he’s up there with the achievements he’s done with the team.”