The Business of Football: Why Brentford Should Sell...
- essentialbrentford
- Jan 16, 2016
- 5 min read
There is no loyalty in the modern game of football. It is a cut-throat, ruthless business where every party is fighting for themselves. Anyone who thinks differently is naive.
On Thursday, James Tarkowski told Dean Smith that he didn't want to play against Burnley, a club that he might be playing for in a couple of weeks time. He made this decision despite the fact that it was in direct breach of his contract. He made the decision despite it betraying every Brentford fan that had ever cheered him on from the sideline. Tarkowski's decision was immature, disloyal and uncondonable.
However, it was a decision that is understandable. We are in no way trying to excuse Tarkowski from his mammoth mistake, but here's the other side of the argument. Tarkowski is a twenty-three year old who is longing for a move back up North. A lot of our sources have suggested that he was heavily influenced by his agents advisement to request not to play against Burnley. In Tarkowski's mind there were a few good reasons for submitting such a request.
Firstly, he may be playing for the Clarets in a couple of weeks time. To play against them for Brentford would lead to a conflict of interests. Not only would he be trying to take points off a side that in a week or two he might be calling his own, but he might also be a hindrance to Brentford. It is likely that Tarkowski did not want to play because he didn't want to risk costing Brentford points. A silly mistake due to a lapse of concentration would lead to heavy criticism from the Bees faithful. When you add agent pressure and the Sky TV cameras into the mix, it doesn't seem like such an outrageous decision.
Again, we're not condoning Tarkowski's decision. He made a mistake, but does that mean that the bond between the two parties are now beyond repair. Many Bees fans are calling for him to rot in the reserves until his contract is up. However, Tarkowski is still our player. As long as he remains our player, we should try to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he comes out with an apology, and a decent explanation for his decision, then perhaps there is reconciliation yet. From the perspective of Brentford FC, however, it might be a strategic advantage to sell him.
In a general sense, Brentford fans must get used to the club selling their prized assets. In fact, we should go one step further than this and get excited by a potential deal for one of our key players. In fact, the club should be as eager to sell our good players as to buy them. Peter Taylor was Brian Clough's assistant who helped turn Nottingham Forest from an obscure provincial team into twice European Champions with the finances of a second division club. Taylor wrote:
"It's important in football as in the stock market to sell at the right time. A manager should always be looking for signs of deterioration in a winning side and then sell the players responsible for the deterioration before anyone notices".
Taylor and Clough were able to exploit the ineffeciencies of the transfer market (of which there are many) in order to build Championship winning teams on very little funds. Every transfer is essentially an investment. You are investing in the future ability of a player. In recent years, Brentford have become model investors. Andre Gray was bought for £500K and sold for £9m. Moses Odubajo was bought for £1m and sold for £3.5m. Stuart Dallas was bought on a free and sold for £1.3m. Adam Forshaw was bought on a free and sold for £3m. These tranfers all allow Brentford to buy more players. In the words of Billy Beane: "You always have to be upgrading. Otherwise you're f*cked". All of these wise investments have been due to the statistical genius of Matthew Benham, but that's another story.
The problem is that football fans are some of the most short-sighted people you will meet. Fans don't care about long-term goals, they desire immediate short-term success. This means that when a club sells one of their best players, they don't tend to notice wise business, they tend to notice only the hole left in the starting line-up. Real Madrid are the most obvious example. There is no way that Gareth Bale was worth the whopping fee that Madrid splashed out on him (twice as much as Arsenal spent on Mesut Ozil that same Summer). The reason Perez spent that much money is because he had to keep the fans happy. The club were willing to make an ultimately bad investment in order to keep their consumers content.
Real Madrid is a massive club; Bale's transfer was a statement to the rest of the footballing world saying "we're the biggest and the best". Brentford are, regretfully, the opposite. In terms of finances, we're a small fish in a very big pond. We're a David in a league of twenty-three Goliaths. Brentford have to make shrewd investments in order to keep punching above their weight - and hopefully higher.
So, what does that mean for this transfer window? If we can get £5m for Tarkowski then that would be a great piece of business. We signed him for about 5% of that, and would make a massive return on our investment. We are unlikey to make more money for him in the future, and now seems like a decent time to sell. If you add all of the controversy he's caused, it's likely that the fans would love to see the back of him. There's no point in letting him rot in the reserves. That would be like leaving a truck-load of cash out on the training pitch.
Another player who should go is Toumani Diagouraga. Signed in the same window as Marcel Eger, Nicky Adams and Pim Balkestein, this investment cannot go down to tactical genius or exploiting an undervalued prospect. Toums has been the driving force behind his own success. He has been a terrific servant to the club, but at the ripe old age of 28 his best days are probably behind him. Studies have shown that footballers peak at the age of twenty-six, much earlier than previously thought. Even this season, there have been signs that Diagouraga's performance has been waning. He was dropped for a brief spell earlier this year, including being substituted in the 34th minute in one match. If we could bag £1m for him it would be a terrific piece of business.
In the modern age of football there is no room for sentimentality. Unfortunately, Bees fans must accept that Brentford is a selling club as much as it is a buying club. Each player represents an investment that the club has made, and we must seek to gain returns on those investments so that we can keep upgrading. Fan favourites must be sold so that we can keep upgrading. Think of what our squad looked like just a couple of season ago. Each of those players have been replaced and upgraded. In a few seasons time, each of the current batch of players will have been sold. It is the duty of the owner, manager and everyone at the club to ensure that we have upgraded on these players too.
Bees fans should not fear the transfer window, they should embrace it. Brentford have become masters of investment. Long may we continue to be.
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