Sergi Canos interview: Brentford winger on the trials and tribulations of playing as wing-back in Premier League this season

The season was already made just 22 minutes into the opening night of the premier league.

The Spaniard set the Bees on their way to a historic, shock 2-0 win when he collected the ball on the edge of the box, took three touches and fired past the goalkeeper.

The way his posture changes and his face lights up when he hears about that famous occasion, says it all.

He has relived and recounted the moment many times in interviews over the last seven months, yet he talks about it with such pride that it feels like the first time. This is a memory that will stay with you for a long time.

He recalls in an exclusive interview with Sky Sports that he lost his head.

It was like a dream to score in the premier league. It felt like my first game in the league. When I was a kid, I used to watch the game and then score, but then I lost it.

I am so grateful to be able to say that I scored the first goal for the team in the league. It means a lot to me and my family.

This was a moment written in the stars. The 25-year-old, who arrived initially on loan fromLiverpool in August 2015 and then permanently fromNorwich 11 months later, is part of the furniture in west London.

In an interview with Sky Sports last March, he spoke about his pride at the fact he was approaching 200 appearances for the club.

Less than 50 players have reached the elite 250 club, but he is approaching it more than a year later.

Over the last six-and-a-half years, he has shown himself to be versatile and willing to play wherever he is needed to.

He was the replacement for Said Benrahma when he was deployed on the left wing in a 4-3-3 formation.

He ended the season with nine goals and 10 assists in 55 appearances, but it was difficult to switch from his preferred right flank.

He has mostly been played at right wing-back in the 4-3-1-2 setup, filling the void left by the departure of experienced Danish international Henrik Dalsgaard, who left for sister club FC Midtjylland in the summer.

I had a meeting with Thomas and Brian in the pre-season. The Spaniard sat in an office chair in a side room at the club's Jersey Road training ground after they explained what they wanted to do.

At that time, they thought I was going to be a good wing-back, so I said yes.

When Frank had tinkered with the formation during the Championship years, he had moonlighted in the position.

The 25-year-old has not yet reached his physical peak, but playing there on a more regular basis has accelerated a different type of development for him.

It has been difficult because my strength is to attack. In games where I have had to communicate with the centre-backs, which is new to me, I have had to defend low and be compact. I knew it was going to be crucial and I have been trying to improve that.

At the beginning of the season, I think I did quite well and we were really solid defensively, but then I look back and there were other times where I was a winger defending at the back post. When we have defended low, I think I have suffered the most because I could not show my strengths.

I have had to put in a lot of work. I have tried to focus on the defensive side instead of attacking and I am much better at it now than I was at the beginning of the season. The team needs me to stay outside at the end of training.

For my whole career, I have been a player who is confident in his abilities. It has been difficult to step up to the premier league and not have as many of those situations to feel confident.

I had to put a lot of focus on having confidence in my defense, recovering balls and not letting players get past me for me to feel confident and that is not how I feel confident. I think it has been good. I have no regrets.

The trickiest opponent he has faced? Allan Saint-Maximin was all over the place. I felt like I was on the other side because he was so fast and powerful.

A recent return to a 4-3-3 has given Canos a rare chance to move forward again, with Kristoffer Ajer coming across from the centre-back position to slot in at right-back.

Since the shift, Thomas Frank's side have taken six points from the nine on offer after beatingNorwich 3-1 on March 5, winning 2-0 at home to Burnley a week later and then falling to a 2-1 defeat away toLeicester on March 20.

Reverting to an attacking role did not come easily.

I felt great in my first game, but I didn't play as a winger for more than a year, so I felt all over the place.

When I was a wing-back, I was trying to be low behind the centre-backs and then attacking whenever I could, but sometimes I felt like I wasn't high enough. My mind was just adjusting.

I need a couple of games to get used to thePremier League. Rico would sometimes tell me to push higher because the way we press is different. It wasn't my best game, but I felt like myself again.

The results could have been better. The team has 30 points from 30 games. They are eight points above the bottom three with eight to play, but five of the six teams below them still have games in hand.

It would take a brave man to suggest that they are safe despite the encouraging recent signs.

He says that whoever says the opposite is lying, would sign the paper on the first day of the season.

For sure, we are not safe. We will work hard to get the wins before the end of the season. We will deal with it well and we are quite confident.

At the beginning of the season, we knew that bad times were going to come and that we had to earn those points. Even if they are in the top flight, bad times still come for every team. It happens to many people, why not to us? They were important points.

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You can see that the confidence is back. We have played well in the last three games and we deserve to have the points we have.

With the way we have played and the way we have shown people how we play, I don't think we deserve to be in the conversation.

This season has provided a learning curve for Canos.

With any luck, he will be able to continue in the top flight next season if the Bees continue to play well.