Brentford are seen as an example for any club looking to take the Premier League by storm but according to owner Matt Benham, they missed out on some big names as well.
Brentford have done wonderfully well in the market in recent years and oftentimes, they’ve cashed in for big profit like with Bryan Mbeumo and Christian Norgaard.
However, it doesn’t always work out and Benham has explained how the Bees missed out on Eberechi Eze for just £4m.
How many goal contributions will these players combine for next season?
How Brentford could have signed Eberechi Eze and Omar Marmoush for just £4m
Brentford are just like any club in that they have to make decisions based on their scouting model and finances.
Sometimes, they get it wrong though, as Benham explained about Eze and current Man City ace Marmoush.
“There’s always going to be ones you regret.I was saying before that we could have signed Eze for £4m I think in 2019. We could also have signed Marmoush on a free about three years ago,” Benham revealed.
“We could have signed both for about £4m combined.”
Adding further weight to just how good Brentford’s network is, Benham then revealed two other expensive Premier League stars were on their list.
“The summer we got promoted to the Premier League, there was actually two players that scouted amazingly, amazingly well.
“One was [Mykhailo] Mudryk which was maybe a bit complicated if we signed, although we were quite close to signing him for a low fee, for about €20m. Eventually, he went for more like €80m though he’s currently serving a ban,” Benham added.
“Then Michael Olise, his scouting was unbelievable, out of this world but we just got promoted and we weren’t used to the crazy agent fees in the Premier League at the time.
“The agent fee for that one was so insanely high that we stepped away, even though there was part of us thinking ‘well, if you combine the agent fee and the transfer fee, it’s kind of not too bad,’ but the agent fee on its own was just so insane that we stepped away. There’s always going to be ones you miss out on.”
Clearly, the Mudryk deal is one that Brentford won’t regret but it would have been interesting to see if things would have been different had he moved to the Bees.
Like when Arsenal were so keen on him, Mudryk’s career took a serious turn for the worse when he arrived at Chelsea. Now banned, we will wait and see if he makes a return at the top level at all.
As for the other names mentioned, well, Michael Olise is probably the standout player there.
Interestingly, it’s eye-opening how Crystal Palace managed to have both Eze and Olise on the books, clearly demonstrating the Eagles had no such issues paying what they did.
Overall though, every club can learn from Brentford, including the likes of Arsenal.
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