A little over a mile from Brentford’s Gtech Stadium, just the other side of Kew Bridge, is Kew Gardens. The botanical and mycological (fungi) garden there is the most diverse worldwide.

What exists fundamentally as a place of protection and cultivation for various plant species — many of which are endangered — is, functionally, exactly what Brentford have done with strikers over the past eight years. They have been the breeding ground for No 9s to thrive.

The latest example is Igor Thiago. The 24-year-old, who joined in July 2024 from Club Brugge for an initial €33million (a record transfer for the club), netted a hat-trick in Brentford’s recent 4-2 away win over Everton.

That lifted them to seventh and raised his goal tally to 14, including five penalties. Only Erling Haaland (19) at Manchester City is ahead of him, and is the sole player with more match-winning goals than Thiago’s six.

One might call this unbelievable. There was the avalanche of departures from Brentford in the summer: club captain Christian Norgaard to Arsenal and goalkeeper Mark Flekken joined Bayer Leverkusen, while the loss of Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United and Yoane Wissa to Newcastle United left a hole of 39 goals from last season.

Most importantly, there was the move of head coach Thomas Frank north in the capital to Tottenham Hotspur, and his succession by former set-piece coach Keith Andrews.

Forget about the congested mid-table, not many expected Brentford to be seventh after 20 games, nor to have the top contender against Haaland for the Golden Boot. The talk in August was all about a relegation battle.

Memories are short in football, and it has quickly been forgotten that this is what Brentford do: they sell, they recruit, they rebuild — almost always with a high-scoring striker — and tend to finish in the top half.

Going back to their Championship days, Neal Maupay hit 37 goals across two seasons before moving to Brighton & Hove Albion in 2019. He was replaced by Ollie Watkins, who scored 25 in 2019-20, a term they ended as beaten play-off finalists by rivals Fulham.

Then Watkins went to Aston Villa in 2020, and Ivan Toney took his place. Toney (31) netted six more goals than Watkins the year prior, Brentford earned six more points, and this time they won the play-off final, beating Swansea City.

That striker succession line has continued in the Premier League. Toney peaked with a 20-goal season in 2022-23, then Wissa and Mbeumo filled the void over the past two years when the England international was banned for eight months for betting breaches before moving to Al Ahli in August 2024.

Wissa and Mbeumo proved to be the Premier League’s most dynamic duo last term and earned more than £100million in sales. Retrospectively, that money helped cover the club-record fee paid for Thiago (which was broken again this summer when they signed Dango Ouattara from Bournemouth).

Brentford fans have had plenty of No 9s to fall in love with over the past decade (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

The success of Thiago at Brentford, like the strikers before him, owes to three main things.

Firstly, the scalability of his profile. Watch back the 18 league goals (and five Europa Conference League ones) he scored for Brugge two years ago, and he looks remarkably similar to Toney: headed goals from crosses, a mix of left- and right-foot finishes, penalties, goals on the rebound, close-range tap-ins, and angled finishes.

Speak to recruitment analysts, and they will tell you that data is used initially to filter players not just by good numbers, but specifically those who are high-performing in metrics most relevant for their club, then they watch the tape to see the all-important details.

Brentford centre-back Nathan Collins, speaking to BBC Match of the Day after the Everton win, called Thiago “a handful” and said he has “a bit of everything”. When Thiago scored a brace against Burnley on matchday 13, he bettered Toney’s record (15 games) of being the fastest Brentford player to double digits in one Premier League term.

At Brugge, Thiago was the sole No 9 at the top of a 4-2-3-1, the shape Brentford primarily played under Frank, and now with Andrews. He had twice made successful transfers — from Brazil (Cruzeiro) to Bulgaria (Ludogorets) and then to Belgium (Brugge) — which added reassurance of his settling.

Signing Thiago from Brugge is a slight deviation from the typical Brentford policy, a reflection of their established Premier League status. Traditionally, they signed strikers and forwards from England’s lower tiers (Watkins, Toney) or France (Wissa, Mbeumo, Maupay).

“First and foremost, it’s our scouting department that is very good,” Frank said in an April press conference when speaking about Wissa.

“I was very aware of him and I watched him a lot myself. To be fair, we looked at him as a winger, but what I liked was that he was very good at arriving on the last line inside the box. That’s why I thought: ‘That’s the player who will score goals for us’.”

Frank added: “The thought was to take the decision together” of how Brentford’s recruitment operated, between himself, owner Matthew Benham, director of football Phil Giles, and technical director Lee Dykes.

With Watkins and Wissa, Frank ‘converted’ them into central players from wingers, maximising their speed and poaching instincts.

Secondly, the stability at Brentford. Frank coached over 300 games from 2018 to 2025, meaning relationships could be built and sustained, and tactical demands were consistent. Andrews, as a replacement, was a familiar face.

Before Thiago’s hat-trick away to Everton, he had been on a six-game goalless run, his longest of the season. Elsewhere, dry periods like that (and the same for winless runs and head coaches) are less forgiven.

“A little bit mad he hasn’t scored in a few weeks, but two games ago we played against Bournemouth and he was the basis for us winning the game,” Andrews said at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

“He’s been on a journey where he was injured for a lot of last season and he settled into the club behind the scenes, not in the spotlight where everybody would see it.”

Andrews told reporters earlier this term that, as set-piece coach last season, he made a conscious effort to include the injured Thiago (two knee problems kept him out for almost all of 2024-25) in set-piece walkthroughs on the training ground.

At bigger clubs with bigger squads and more intense game schedules, this is less possible, and competition for places tends to be more brutal.

Most importantly, it is evidence of the positive transfer of skills that happens with the overlap of strikers at Brentford.

Thiago would have learned from Mbeumo and Wissa in the same ways that the duo took things from Toney (notably Mbeumo’s penalty-taking). That overlap can be stretched back to Mbeumo playing alongside Said Benrahma and Watkins, as part of the famed ‘BMW’ trio.

Thirdly, Brentford’s style. Andrews, like Frank, builds his team around the striker and ensures there is at least one truly creative profile in midfield and at full-back. They can be high scoring and high conceding, with as many goals as Chelsea (212) and only six fewer than Aston Villa since August 2022.

Being a lower-possession team, and particularly content to defend deep for long periods, means Thiago’s work without the ball is limited and helps conserve energy. He has more clearances than tackles and interceptions, because he is more important for set-piece defending than in open play.

An underrated part of the Brentford approach — underpinned by set-piece threat, from long throws especially — is how they prioritise chance quality over quantity.

Andrews’ side ranks third for big chances (59), with only Arsenal (62) and Manchester City (65) having more. Brentford shoot, on average, closer to goal than everyone. Just like with goals, Thiago only trails Haaland for big chances (24 to 33).

Brentford cross plenty, and there are through-ball passers in midfield with Mikkel Damsgaard, Jordan Henderson and Mathias Jensen. Here, away to Everton, is Damsgaard slipping Thiago through on the angle. That run into the right half-space is becoming a trademark.

Similarly, their deep defending style — especially when ahead — sets them up for direct and counter-attacks that make the most of Thiago’s running power and capacity to duel against centre-backs (Everton’s Thierno Barry is the only striker to compete in more aerial duels).

Take this chance at home to Bournemouth, which came before Brentford equalised from a channel ball down the right, and, after a defensive mix-up, Thiago’s angled shot ended up an own goal by goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic.

Only fellow Brazilian striker Evanilson has been offside more in the Premier League this term, such is the keenness of Thiago to get in behind. Two goals from long balls 12 minutes apart in the home win over Manchester United showed that.

Brentford also win plenty of penalties, 30 in total since their debut season in 2021-22, which is the fifth-most.

The chaos they cause at set pieces contributes to that, as does the technical quality of their wingers, with Outtarra winning four of Thiago’s six penalties this campaign; he’s scored five, the only blot being a 94th-minute save by Brighton & Hove Albion goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen.

Thiago’s form, unfortunately for Brentford, is probably a bit too impressive. He’s only marginally over his expected-goals (xG) numbers, meaning the first half of the season was not just an extended purple patch, but rather that he continues to find good scoring positions.

And while a chequered injury history aged 24 is unideal, goals matter. But because this is Brentford, they have already bought the likely replacement.

In fact, they signed Kevin Schade back in 2023 after a loan from SC Freiburg, as a half-winger, half-striker profile with an aerial threat, physicality, speed to run in-behind, and a good scoring return. He’s twice scored hat-tricks in the Premier League.

Schade primarily plays off the left as a wide forward because of Thiago being the No 9. Whether he has the all-round game to lead the line is still unknown. Three of Schade’s four league appearances as a striker this season have come versus Chelsea, Arsenal and City.

But that is a future problem. For now, Brentford can keep looking up the table, and Thiago keeps chasing Haaland and his own secret target number of goals. The succession planning is working.