Brentford fc

[CreamofSumYungGai]

God he really was awful.

[Byways1]

God he really was awful.

I think lings record in the transfer market over the years has best been very average.
If you look at Slades record it was far superior. Several players bought for nothing and sold for a profit Dawson and Revell spring to mind and of course Cox who we could have sold at anytime if he wanted to move.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Find it all very interesting tbh. I follow baseball very closely and how teams are always trying to get an edge now. It's moved on from buying under the radar players, based on useful stats rather than historical stats that people think are meaningful. I've always been amazed that football is so far behind in this regard.

Will be interested to see if this expands from buying and selling players to how analytics can change the way teams play, formations, subs, etc..

[DuvB]

Individual performance stats dont always tell the complete story. Some players perform well depending on who else is playing alongside them plus the way the team is set up.

Good examples are how Lisbie transformed Mooney and how Cureton was poor for us but successful everywhere else.

[Byways1]

Individual performance stats dont always tell the complete story. Some players perform well depending on who else is playing alongside them plus the way the team is set up.

Good examples are how Lisbie transformed Mooney and how Cureton was poor for us but successful everywhere else.

Whatever the system Brentford are using it is working.

[tuffers#1]

Are you being serious?
Was Moores a good replacement for Kitchen?
Finney for Griffiths?
The bloke who replaced the geezer we sold to Fulham for 1m
Not to mention the strike force we’ve got now.

I get what you’re saying, but this is a terrible example. The bloke (Tamika Mkindawire) was a considerably better player than the geezer (Gabriel Zakuani).

No, the bloke we sold to Fulham was Zakuani who I only ever thought was a L1 player.
To get a million pound for him was the best deal in the clubs history.
Anybody who saw him get torn apart at Oxford on the 6th May could see that.
Don’t think he ever played a league game for Fulham.
Who was the bloke we got in replacement from Port Vale?
Absolutely hopeless, and I think Ling gave him a 2/3 year contract so we were stuck with him.

Gab got torn to shreds at Oxford ?

Blimey you must have been p155ed .

Tony Pulis liked him enough he had 2 loan spells at Stoke
The 2nd one helped Stoke to The premier league winning promotion.

A deal was all due to be signed until there chairmen pulled the plug on the
move as they had spent to much money .

[Byways1]

I get what you’re saying, but this is a terrible example. The bloke (Tamika Mkindawire) was a considerably better player than the geezer (Gabriel Zakuani).

No, the bloke we sold to Fulham was Zakuani who I only ever thought was a L1 player.
To get a million pound for him was the best deal in the clubs history.
Anybody who saw him get torn apart at Oxford on the 6th May could see that.
Don’t think he ever played a league game for Fulham.
Who was the bloke we got in replacement from Port Vale?
Absolutely hopeless, and I think Ling gave him a 2/3 year contract so we were stuck with him.

Gab got torn to shreds at Oxford ?

Blimey you must have been p155ed .

Tony Pulis liked him enough he had 2 loan spells at Stoke
The 2nd one helped Stoke to The premier league winning promotion.

A deal was all due to be signed until there chairmen pulled the plug on the
move as they had spent to much money .

Of course Stoke couldn’t afford A Fulham reserve with the money the Coates family have and tens of millions for promotion to the Premier league.
What a plank.
He was torn apart by some French fella that day and looked what he was, a pretty average player who struggled above L1. Fulham sold him for 375000. Obviously must have been some bidding war.

[tuffers#1]

No, the bloke we sold to Fulham was Zakuani who I only ever thought was a L1 player.
To get a million pound for him was the best deal in the clubs history.
Anybody who saw him get torn apart at Oxford on the 6th May could see that.
Don’t think he ever played a league game for Fulham.
Who was the bloke we got in replacement from Port Vale?
Absolutely hopeless, and I think Ling gave him a 2/3 year contract so we were stuck with him.

Gab got torn to shreds at Oxford ?

Blimey you must have been p155ed .

Tony Pulis liked him enough he had 2 loan spells at Stoke
The 2nd one helped Stoke to The premier league winning promotion.

A deal was all due to be signed until there chairmen pulled the plug on the
move as they had spent to much money .

Of course Stoke couldn’t afford A Fulham reserve with the money the Coates family have and tens of millions for promotion to the Premier league.
What a plank.
He was torn apart by some French fella that day and looked what he was, a pretty average player who struggled above L1. Fulham sold him for 375000. Obviously must have been some bidding war.

No one in the oxford side ripped any of
our players a new one.
Ive got the dvd on & watching it now

Gabi sprinting back to put in a last ditch tackle


As for stoke , pulis & his chairman were on very rocky ground at the time ? Pretty much why he pulled the plug on 5 or 6 transfers back then.

My cousin an avid Stoke fan who travelled over from Ireland week in week out to see em , had been banging on about Zak to me for an age .

[Byways1]

There is no way on earth that fella was a Premiership player.
That’s why nobody signed him.

[Tent Keague]

A good friend of mine’s older brother was actually on the board of Brentford and is close friends with Matt Benham, the owner and man behind their statistical model. He also owns FC Midtjylland in Denmark who take a similar approach.

Just a few examples of where the model works below;

Scott Hogan - 900k sold for 9.4m after 1.5 seasons.
Neal Maupay - 1.9m sold for 19.8m after 2 seasons
Konsa - 2.5m sold for 11.97m after a year.
Sawyers - Free sold for 2.88m after 3 seasons
Bentley - Free sold for 1.98m after 3 seasons
Chris Mepham - Free sold for 12.1m after 2.5 seasons.
Ryan Woods - 1.2m sold for 6.5m after 3.5 years.

I’ve obviously chosen good examples but the net after all of the sales on these is 58m over the past 4 years. That’s around a 880% return on those 7 assets.

They apparently guarantee players they will always play & be sold after a certain period of time or if a bid comes in for a certain amount where the model dictates they are getting the optimum value for the player against the value they were bought for. This takes into account age, position etc.

A good example being Konsa who was apparently torn between Villa and Brentford. Brentford persuaded him to join by guaranteeing him first team football and being sold after a certain amount of games or if a bid came in for a certain value instead of sitting behind John Terry and Collins at Villa a few seasons ago. Ironically he has now gone to Villa for 9.4m more than they were bidding just 1.5 years earlier.

A good example of someone who might leave soon would be Ollie Watkins signed from Exeter in July 2017 for 1.8m and will easily move on for 8m plus. They have an entire team of back up transfers who they believe can replace each player for cheaper if they leave and will in turn sell them on after a few seasons for a profit.

I don’t know enough in terms of financial viability in the long term but I imagine if you can find a Scott Hogan, Neal Maupay or Konsa every two seasons or so it should keep it all ticking over nicely and would wipe out a year where they did make a loss

This is a very interesting post.

Whilst I understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to undermine you at all (you say you've picked out the top bunch in your examples), the list of players you have are spread over 3.5 years. How many players have Brentford actually signed in that timeframe?

I'd just be interested in their hit rate. Since they pipped us for promotion and Odubaju left them I've not really paid them much attention.

[Byways1]

Well you can add Moses signed for 1m sold 10 months later for 3.25 m
Andre Gray signed for 700k sold one year later for 6 million.
I wish our recruiting was as good as that.

[Byways1]

Well you can add Moses signed for 1m sold 10 months later for 3.25 m
Andre Gray signed for 700k sold one year later for 6 million.
I wish our recruiting was as good as that.

Actually it was more than that.
https://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.s ... =transfers

[Tent Keague]

I believe our Chief Scout worked for Brentford (with Dean Smith?) up until 2016 so I suppose we're going in the right direction as he must have been responsible for some of those signings.

Our recruitment of players of late has been good. And we are paying for players too. Sometimes a little spend (obviously relative to Brentford's) can see a better return.

[Byways1]

Don’t know about that, the two signings last summer were a waste.

[Proposition Joe]

Can't wait til we sell Dale Gorman for £2m.

[tuffers#1]

There is no way on earth that fella was a Premiership player.
That’s why nobody signed him.

Fulham were a Premier league club they signed him




Heres Mackie talking about him in the 10 years on clip about Oxford watch the highlights .
Both there goals came from free kicks & Sabin beats mackie to the 1st & the 2nd ( free kick ) was just as bad defensively from mackie & garner

P.S i wont disagree about him not being a PL player , but at that age clubs take a punt.
Christ if Some if the sh*te that has graced the PL
Bentner , george weahs cousin tgen why not punt on Zakuani ?
Didnt he do his knee in badly at Fulham or was that with someone else?

[Tent Keague]

Don’t know about that, the two signings last summer were a waste.

That's just being selective isn't it. We've recruited well in general.

We've recruited well enough to go from having no players, to a team good enough to gain promotion in two years.

We've also sold two players to Championship clubs for profit and I was worried that a third and fourth may go too.

Nobody is ever going to get it right all the time. We won't. Brentford won't.

Lewis McLeod signed from Rangers for £1m. Released on a free.
Josh McEachran signed from Chelsea for £750k. Released on a free.
Barbet signed for £500k. Released on a free.

I could go on. There's loads on Soccerbase. Not trying to prove a point though.

Brentford are obviously doing something right. But it's important to keep perspective.

[Tent Keague]

Brentford are obviously doing something right.

To quote myself, having giving it a moments thought, are Brentford actually doing something right?

They've sold their old ground, sold their new ground, dismantled their youth teams and academy, and are losing (according to earlier in this thread) £350k a week.

None of their managers have won anything, they seldom have a cup run (not checked) and generally speaking they finish 10th.

[gshaw]

God he really was awful.

I think lings record in the transfer market over the years has best been very average.
If you look at Slades record it was far superior. Several players bought for nothing and sold for a profit Dawson and Revell spring to mind and of course Cox who we could have sold at anytime if he wanted to move.

Can't let that moment pass without bringing back the memories of James Scowcroft and Sam Parkin. Didn't they only score something like 1 goal between them

[Byways1]

There is no way on earth that fella was a Premiership player.
That’s why nobody signed him.

Fulham were a Premier league club they signed him




Heres Mackie talking about him in the 10 years on clip about Oxford watch the highlights .
Both there goals came from free kicks & Sabin beats mackie to the 1st & the 2nd ( free kick ) was just as bad defensively from mackie & garner

P.S i wont disagree about him not being a PL player , but at that age clubs take a punt.
Christ if Some if the sh*te that has graced the PL
Bentner , george weahs cousin tgen why not punt on Zakuani ?
Didnt he do his knee in badly at Fulham or was that with someone else?

The fact is he never played one game in the Premiership.
Good League one player.
I think Bentner had more pedigree,he actually played and was an international.

[Byways1]

Don’t know about that, the two signings last summer were a waste.

That's just being selective isn't it. We've recruited well in general.

We've recruited well enough to go from having no players, to a team good enough to gain promotion in two years.

We've also sold two players to Championship clubs for profit and I was worried that a third ought. In over the years and sold at a profitand fourth may go too.

Nobody is ever going to get it right all the time. We won't. Brentford won't.

Lewis McLeod signed from Rangers for £1m. Released on a free.
Josh McEachran signed from Chelsea for £750k. Released on a free.
Barbet signed for £500k. Released on a free.

I could go on. There's loads on Soccerbase. Not trying to prove a point though.

Brentford are obviously doing something right. But it's important to keep perspective.

Well one of those came through the youth system.
Never been convinced by Ling, he is very hit and miss in recruitment.
How many players has he bought in over the years and sold at a profit?

[Byways1]

God he really was awful.

I think lings record in the transfer market over the years has best been very average.
If you look at Slades record it was far superior. Several players bought for nothing and sold for a profit Dawson and Revell spring to mind and of course Cox who we could have sold at anytime if he wanted to move.

Can't let that moment pass without bringing back the memories of James Scowcroft and Sam Parkin. Didn't they only score something like 1 goal between them

Scowcroft never scored goals anywhere even when he was in his prime.
About one in four and a half.

[Byways1]

Brentford are obviously doing something right.

To quote myself, having giving it a moments thought, are Brentford actually doing something right?

They've sold their old ground, sold their new ground, dismantled their youth teams and academy, and are losing (according to earlier in this thread) £350k a week.

None of their managers have won anything, they seldom have a cup run (not checked) and generally speaking they finish 10th.

It’s not something that is sustainable in the long term(although they seem to be keeping it going). They look at the same players as everybody else in the Championship and it’s only a matter of time when this model fails and that will mean relegation.

[Byways1]

Don’t know about that, the two signings last summer were a waste.

That's just being selective isn't it. We've recruited well in general.

We've recruited well enough to go from having no players, to a team good enough to gain promotion in two years.

We've also sold two players to Championship clubs for profit and I was worried that a third ought. In over the years and sold at a profitand fourth may go too.

Nobody is ever going to get it right all the time. We won't. Brentford won't.

Lewis McLeod signed from Rangers for £1m. Released on a free.
Josh McEachran signed from Chelsea for £750k. Released on a free.
Barbet signed for £500k. Released on a free.

I could go on. There's loads on Soccerbase. Not trying to prove a point though.

Brentford are obviously doing something right. But it's important to keep perspective.

Well one of those came through the youth system.
Never been convinced by Ling, he is very hit and miss in recruitment.
How many players has he bought in over the years and sold at a profit?

Mind you how many players did Tommy Taylor sign?
About 125?

[LittleMate]

Don’t know about that, the two signings last summer were a waste.

That's just being selective isn't it. We've recruited well in general.

We've recruited well enough to go from having no players, to a team good enough to gain promotion in two years.

We've also sold two players to Championship clubs for profit and I was worried that a third ought. In over the years and sold at a profitand fourth may go too.

Nobody is ever going to get it right all the time. We won't. Brentford won't.

Lewis McLeod signed from Rangers for £1m. Released on a free.
Josh McEachran signed from Chelsea for £750k. Released on a free.
Barbet signed for £500k. Released on a free.

I could go on. There's loads on Soccerbase. Not trying to prove a point though.

Brentford are obviously doing something right. But it's important to keep perspective.

Well one of those came through the youth system.
Never been convinced by Ling, he is very hit and miss in recruitment.
How many players has he bought in over the years and sold at a profit?

At every club there are mistakes. For every Ronaldo there is an Djemba-Djemba lurking in clubs cupboards.

As for Brentfords success, I'd say they were ordinarily set up to be an OK league one side. A combination of playing good football (vital to attract the right players) and this buy/sell policy has seen them flirt more with promotion than relegation in the championship. I'd call that a measure of success.