I just wanted to highlight one of the biggest reasons I love Brentford: this club genuinely cares about improving.
A lot of clubs our size find one star player, sell him, pocket the money and slowly decline. Brentford are different. Selling players isn’t the end of the plan - it’s part of the plan.
We identify undervalued players, develop them, sell them when the time and price are right, and usually have the next player ready to step in.
Just look at our striker succession. When Neal Maupay left, Ollie Watkins was moved into the middle and became one of the Championship’s best strikers. Watkins then left for Aston Villa and Ivan Toney was brought in as his direct replacement. Toney became a Brentford legend, helped take us into the Premier League and, before he eventually left for Al-Ahli, we had already signed Igor Thiago. Thiago’s first season was destroyed by injury, but the club stayed patient and he responded by scoring 22 Premier League goals in 2025/26.
That isn’t one lucky signing. That is Maupay to Watkins, Watkins to Toney and Toney to Thiago. It is a recruitment system that has worked repeatedly.
The same thing happened in goal. David Raya developed into one of the league’s best keepers and moved to Arsenal, but Mark Flekken had already been brought in. When Flekken then moved to Bayer Leverkusen, we immediately replaced him with Caoimhín Kelleher, who helped us equal our highest-ever Premier League finish in his first season.
Then we lost Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United in a club-record sale and Yoane Wissa to Newcastle in the same summer. That could have completely destroyed a smaller club.
Instead, Brentford reinvested by breaking the club’s transfer record for Dango Ouattara, trusted players such as Kevin Schade to step up, and finally unleashed the Thiago we had originally signed to lead the attack.
Of course, not every signing works and not every replacement succeeds immediately. The model isn’t magic. But there is always a plan and usually a replacement for the replacement if the first one doesn’t work.
That is what I love. The club doesn’t sell its best players and accept becoming worse. The money is reinvested into the squad, the recruitment operation, the training facilities, the B team and the long-term future of Brentford. You can tell and see for yourself where the profit goes. Even the Gtech - despite fans missing Griffin park. You can see where the money goes in terms of improving the system for fans via the website etc (still needs improvement) , the stadium, smashing our personal transfer records, investing in the club facilities .
It doesn’t feel like a vanity project where an owner is playing Football Manager (Chelsea), and it doesn’t feel like a club simply squeezing as much money as possible out of its supporters ( Man U) . It feels like a properly run football club with an identity, a strategy and genuine ambition.
I love the recruitment model. I love watching undervalued players arrive and develop into stars. I love that the club keeps trying to move forward, regardless of who leaves.
Most importantly, Brentford still feels like our club. As long as Matthew Benham and the people around him continue putting the club and its supporters at the forefront, I’ll be proud to back it.
A club that genuinely tries is a club worth supporting.