Brentford won their 10th playoff final after 9 unsuccessful attempts to get promoted to
the Premier League They did exceptionally well in a Championship
season that flattered the likes of Bournemouth and Derby.
Apart from being the 50th club to play in the Premier League and operating with the
fourth-lowest wage bill in the Championship, what’s making neutrals flock down to support
this London club?
And how are they using money ball to not only survive football but potentially boss it in
the future?
Today at Soccerspective, we bring you the inspiring, incredible and street smart story
of how Brentford made it to the Premier League.
Brentford has not been a sporting behemoth in footballing history.
A small West London club that mostly settled for the lower divisions of English football,
The Bees played in the top flight in 1946-47 season before being promoted this season,
The club has mostly been a yo-yo club for the most part of its post-war history going
up and down the English footballing pyramid.
For a major part of its history, Brentford has stayed away from the likes of West Ham,
Chelsea and other London clubs,
Before he took over the Bees, Matthew Benham was a professional gambler,
And was actually very good at it, He claims to have successfully created an
algorithm with the help of stats that is helpful in predicting games,
His experience with gambling and more importantly, understanding player behaviour and performance
came in handy at Brentford, He took over in 2012 by purchasing a controlling
stake in a club he had been supporting for years.
Although he didn’t change a lot of things early into this venture, he did have something
extraordinary in mind,
This led to a purchase of FC Midtjylland in Denmark,
Benham used his model of using data as the primary source of scouting in Denmark to unearth
a number of top talents, Needless to say, Midtjylland went on to win
their maiden league title and a few more after that,
Benham, unlike a number of other owners, has been a driving force in running the likes
of Brentford and Midtjylland as successful businesses.
Benham doesn’t like to call his transfer methods as Moneyball, so we’ll call it a
revolution, Which to be fair, it kind of is,
Brentford has bossed the transfer market since Benham took over,
Their new techniques have not only generated results on the pitch but also changed the
face of a club that was nothing more than a feeder club for the big boys,
Benham scrapped Brentford’s youth academy soon after he realised that they were leaking
talent to the top clubs without making any money,
He replaced it with a B Team.
This team consisted of players who were dumped by the top sides but had something in them
and deserved a second chance, Brentford was doing something unheard of in
football and the fans weren’t happy.
But, this helped the club massively as they were able to utilise their B Team and find
a flurry of top talent to support their bid for promotion to the top flight,
The system most certainly works with what we’ve witnessed over the years,
A few teams are running the Moneyball model in the lower divisions,
What sets Brentford apart is how they ensure a players background and thought process before
making a move for him, This has helped them bring players who buy
into the Brentford way of football, Also, this helps them avoid unnecessary drama
during the transfer window.
Apart from scrapping their academy, Brentford extended their scouting network to the unexplored
lands of football, From being limited to the British Isles, they
went as far as Iceland and Turkey to find the best talent,
And they did that successfully.
Brentford has found the likes of Ollie Watkins, Said Benrahma and Neal Maupay to name a few.
Brentford have spent an estimated £63.2 million and earned £130 million in the last 10 years
in the transfer window, Brentford’s run to the Premier League by
no means is a threat to the club’s finances as we’ve seen with other clubs,
Rather it will earn Brentford around £330 million when they join the top clubs in England,
As things turn out, Matthew Benham is set to put that money to good use.
Most promoted clubs either struggle to survive the top flight or surprise enough teams to
make a run for the top 10, Brentford are coming into the top flight with
a style of play that will leave them defensively weak
And they’ll surely need to improve on that, Manager Thomas Frank is no stranger to changes
like these and is expected to make the improvements before the Bees play their first game,
Thankfully for Brentford, their fans will be allowed into the new Brentford Community
Stadium for the first time this season, The new 18,000 seater home will surely add
to the Premier League atmosphere.
From an off-the-field point of view, Brentford are at the crossroads of being Premier League
regulars or going back to a league that’s incredibly hard to get out of,
They surely have a model that can sustain them in the top flight,
They’ll also have the earnings from the promotion to field a stronger squad,
But for a club that sustains itself on the sales of its top players, will the Bees be
able to keep up to the needs of the Premier League?
They don’t play football like Leeds United or Sheffield United did when those teams came
up, So it will be hard for them to be the surprise
package, But they surely have the players to give Premier
League clubs a run for their money if Thomas Frank can hold his men together,
Are Brentford the future of football?
Or are they supposed to go down the pyramid again?
Tell us what you think in the comments.
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