Brentford- the club to emulate

I like them, always seem to play cut and thrust swashbuckling football when I see them. I’d say a breath of fresh air but they’ve been doing it for years now.
 
Very rich owner with his money partly made out of the gambling industry.

They have not come from nowhere.

Definitely not ‘little Brentford’ as they like to present themselves.
 
To be honest, how many of their team would relocate to the NE of England, hardly any I would assume. In football it's not just money these days, location has a huge impact on where players are willing to go.
 
TeaCider said:
They've looked nailed on for promotion for years now, they always seem to **** it up somehow.

I think they will get promoted this season, but that's because it's a very poor Championship this year.
You can see that from the fact we've lost 4 of our last 6 games and have somehow managed to stay exactly where we were in 7th.
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Only because there was a gap beneath Boro, and the other teams were losing too. The gap has gone now, and the next defeat will probably cost 3 places.
 
Wilf said:
our 'fans' would go ape-schytte with the philosophy, they cant handle what we have now, never mind what Brentford do.
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I agree. Every seasons our fans start with the "nothing to be afraid of", "no better chance than this season" stuff.

There would be outrage if the club turned round and said "we're not too worried about this season, or even next season, but we will get there".

Meanwhile, I was struck by the irony that, for all their good football, Brentford's first two goals were the most classic longball goals I've seen this season: longball up to the edge of the area, knock down, finish.

I also can't see our fans putting up with a manager who took 4 points from his first 10 games. There's be some who kept harping back to it after every bad result, no matter what he actually achieved.
 
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Soutra said:
Only because there was a gap beneath Boro, and the other teams were losing too. The gap has gone now, and the next defeat will probably cost 3 places.
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We were 1 point above 8th before this horrible run, we are still 1 point above 8th.

If you count it back to the 4-1 win over Birmingham, we were actually level on points with 8th.
The top 6 have pulled away despite indifferent form, because the vast majority of the teams below aren't getting consistent results either.
 
Isn't their recruitment heavily based on stats? Its definitely worked the last few seasons, but equally they have sepnt a fair bit as well, obviously supported by their incoming transfer fees.

They looked a decent team yesterday, but like all newly promoted teams I think they'd need to bring in at least 4 quality signings to stay up and given some of their recruitment relies on the development of players that have raw talent, they'll have to deviate from that to sign the finished article.
 
HolgateCorner said:
Very rich owner with his money partly made out of the gambling industry.

They have not come from nowhere.

Definitely not ‘little Brentford’ as they like to present themselves.
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They very much are "Little Brentford" and have done unbelievably well through very good leadership.
In the books to June 2019 (last available) they made a nett profit before tax of £24.3m on a turnover of just £15.2m (made possible by £27.2m gain on player disposal (transfers out).
They did this on an 11k crowd with 5k season ticket holders. Their wage bill was £16.7m.
Their Club has positive shareholder value of £34m, whereas our nett shareholder value is negative twice that.
They have been very well run, with excellent scout/recruit/develop/sell for profit model. They've since sold Maupay, Benrahma and Watkins for serious money.
They have built a good new stadium to help support much greater ambition, reflected with a better quality overall squad as witnessed in their league position.

You have to applaud their leadership.
When we thumped them at The Riverside in the second leg of the play offs in front of a full house, that was a pretty good assessment of the two clubs. Plucky Brentford had been "put in their place" and Born again Boro were about to return to the Premier League.
Five years on despite turnover £200m higher than them, we find ourselves with a poorer squad of lower value and with over £100m difference in club shareholder values.

Little Brentford have done remarkably well; whereas Boro...
 
I think a lot of you all massively underestimate what it actually takes to get a player to move within half an hour of Middlesbrough, especially one that has no affiliation to the area.

We're at a massive, massive disadvantage because of our location, and our only success in recent times (within the last 30 years say) has come when we have spent more than comparable teams on wages and transfer fees. We can't do that now, the game has got more expensive, we're priced out, it's similar to how it's affecting Sunderland and Newcastle, although they're probably slightly preferable locations to here (to players).

I think the area is great, but I'm older, and not a footballer, there's a hierarchy to locations and we're at the bottom of it, this handicaps us by a great degree,
 
indeedido said:
They very much are "Little Brentford" and have done unbelievably well through very good leadership.
In the books to June 2019 (last available) they made a nett profit before tax of £24.3m on a turnover of just £15.2m (made possible by £27.2m gain on player disposal (transfers out).
They did this on an 11k crowd with 5k season ticket holders. Their wage bill was £16.7m.
Their Club has positive shareholder value of £34m, whereas our nett shareholder value is negative twice that.
They have been very well run, with excellent scout/recruit/develop/sell for profit model. They've since sold Maupay, Benrahma and Watkins for serious money.
They have built a good new stadium to help support much greater ambition, reflected with a better quality overall squad as witnessed in their league position.

You have to applaud their leadership.
When we thumped them at The Riverside in the second leg of the play offs in front of a full house, that was a pretty good assessment of the two clubs. Plucky Brentford had been "put in their place" and Born again Boro were about to return to the Premier League.
Five years on despite turnover £200m higher than them, we find ourselves with a poorer squad of lower value and with over £100m difference in club shareholder values.

Little Brentford have done remarkably well; whereas Boro...
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Little Brentford have just built a new stadium, in London, with plans for further development around it, that’s how little their owner is, regardless of the club history.

In fairness you make a good point about recruitment but you know one or two players coming good like Watkins has is no sign of a long term production line of buying cheap and selling big, there are examples of that all over the place.

I‘m not disagreeing that they appear to be well run from a playing viewpoint at the moment, and it might just get them up this season, but that extra bit of money combined with the London address, will get target players over the line that other clubs can’t.

I will keep my eye on them but I’m thinking that if you had the time to delve deeply enough, and I think you would have to go very deep, it’s simply about the wealthy and secretive owner.
 
Maupay (1.6mi) / Watkins (3mil) and Benrahma (2.5mil)..... That 3 simply stunning bits of business.

They have 2-3 who they could easily flog for in excess of 20mil. I have no idea what Toney is with after just one season? I bet Peterborough are loving the thought of the sell on clause.
 
S7DiscoDown said:
Maupay (1.6mi) / Watkins (3mil) and Benrahma (2.5mil)..... That 3 simply stunning bits of business.

They have 2-3 who they could easily flog for in excess of 20mil. I have no idea what Toney is with after just one season? I bet Peterborough are loving the thought of the sell on clause.
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Where were we when those guys were bought?
 
indeedido said:
They very much are "Little Brentford" and have done unbelievably well through very good leadership.
In the books to June 2019 (last available) they made a nett profit before tax of £24.3m on a turnover of just £15.2m (made possible by £27.2m gain on player disposal (transfers out).
They did this on an 11k crowd with 5k season ticket holders. Their wage bill was £16.7m.
Their Club has positive shareholder value of £34m, whereas our nett shareholder value is negative twice that.
They have been very well run, with excellent scout/recruit/develop/sell for profit model. They've since sold Maupay, Benrahma and Watkins for serious money.
They have built a good new stadium to help support much greater ambition, reflected with a better quality overall squad as witnessed in their league position.

You have to applaud their leadership.
When we thumped them at The Riverside in the second leg of the play offs in front of a full house, that was a pretty good assessment of the two clubs. Plucky Brentford had been "put in their place" and Born again Boro were about to return to the Premier League.
Five years on despite turnover £200m higher than them, we find ourselves with a poorer squad of lower value and with over £100m difference in club shareholder values.

Little Brentford have done remarkably well; whereas Boro...
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Clear strategy well executed helps
 
Regardless of the owners financial clout, the respective recruitment strategies are very different. Brentford manage to find the type of forwards we are desperate for on a regular basis so they are definitely out there. Our biggest problem seems to be that we can't seem to see the potential gem and tend to look at players who've already done well. I'd equate it to someone who thinks that a band who've had their first top 40 hit are the cutting edge of cool while fans of the same band from their days gigging pubs are already listening to the next big thing.
Not sure how we change that given the way the club is run and the people Gibson likes to employ.
 
HolgateCorner said:
Little Brentford have just built a new stadium, in London, with plans for further development around it, that’s how little their owner is, regardless of the club history.

In fairness you make a good point about recruitment but you know one or two players coming good like Watkins has is no sign of a long term production line of buying cheap and selling big, there are examples of that all over the place.

I‘m not disagreeing that they appear to be well run from a playing viewpoint at the moment, and it might just get them up this season, but that extra bit of money combined with the London address, will get target players over the line that other clubs can’t.

I will keep my eye on them but I’m thinking that if you had the time to delve deeply enough, and I think you would have to go very deep, it’s simply about the wealthy and secretive owner.
Click to expand...
Have a look at the players they’ve sold over the last 3-4 years. You definitely don’t need to delve deep.
 
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