Brentford fc

[Byways1]

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.

Plus having a wage bill 3 times what Russell Slade had in 2013/14 helped.

[Byways1]

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.

I

[Byways1]

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.

I

After reading this I think it’s blatantly obvious that having an academy for a club like Orient is a waste of time and money.
To lose players for about 30 grand to the big boys is nonsense.

[Proposition Joe]

Really liking the idea of Eric Djemba-Djemba still knocking around Old Trafford holed up in a cabinet somewhere.

[Proposition Joe]

Rather disappointingly he's in the Swiss 5th division at the age of 38.

[Horient]

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.

Of course, you make a good point! I Don’t think your undermining me so no worries there, it’s an interesting topic!

They have obviously signed a lot more than that but without working it out I’d put decent money on the large sales they have made outweighing the duds they have signed over the years. Also, I’m only considering a dud someone they didn’t sell on for more money even though they may have made a big contribution on the pitch and got lots of use out of them even if they didn’t sell them on for a higher value. So I suppose there are two ways of looking at what a dud!

1. Model Dud = didn’t make them a big margin so considered a dud against their model but made a difference on the pitch.

2. Actual dud - purchased, not sold on for profit and added nothing on the pitch.

I also didn’t realise they have sold Yenarris this summer for circa £5m when signed from Arsenal youth on a free about 3/4 years ago.