Brentford must overcome their present state of disappointment and the pattern of history if they are to make up for their final day woe by reaching the Premier League through the play-offs.
The Bees head to Swansea on Sunday for the first leg of their semi-final, having missed out on a glorious chance to seal automatic promotion on Wednesday, losing 2-1 at home to Barnsley when victory would have sent them up.
Thomas Frank’s side won eight in a row before finishing the regular season with agonising back-to-back defeats,. Yet, still they head into the play-offs as favourites, having won five and drawn one of their six games against the other contenders — Swansea, Cardiff and Fulham — this season.
Consensus would tell you that teams who just miss out on automatic promotion rarely get over it in time to triumph in the play-offs but the numbers offer more encouragement; since the turn of the century, 10 third-placed teams have finished within three points of an automatic spot and half of them have gone on to play-off success.
There may be a physical toll of events of the past few weeks, too, though. In pursuit of the top two, Frank has had little opportunity to rotate and seven of his players have started all nine games since the restart.
Then there is the hoodoo. Brentford have been in the play-offs in various divisions eight times and not once have they achieved promotion.
Some of those doomed campaigns began with similar oh-so-nears. Think of the infamous Marcello Trotta penalty miss in the final minute of the 2012-13 League One season, when a goal would have sent the Bees up automatically. And there was 1995, when they finished runners-up in the old Second Division but were still consigned to the play-offs because of league restructuring.
Better news is that few of Frank’s team are burdened by the scars of past defeats. The only survivors from the club’s most recent play-off exit, in 2015, are now on the coaching staff. Pontus Jansson is the only current player to have come within touching distance of the Premier League and fallen short, during his time at Leeds, though Ollie Watkins did lose a League Two Final with Exeter City
The majority are untainted, and all season Frank has spoken about their hunger making up for their lack of experience.
If they can channel it the right way, then nothing should make them hungrier than the emotions of Wednesday night.
