Brentford owner names the four players he ‘regrets’ not signing in rare interview

Brentford owner Matthew Benham has revealed that his club could have signed three current Champions League stars for a combined fee of just £20 million.

In a rare interview, the long-time Bees owner gave an insight into the statistical models that Brentford use to sign players, as well as how the club have ascended from the upper reaches of League One to become a regular mid-table Premier League side in his 14 years at the helm.

An expert when it comes to the gambling industry, data and statistics, Benham worked with Brighton owner Tony Bloom - who employs similar data-focused methods - prior to their entry into English football.

Brentford's transfer model over the past 14 years has focused on those areas especially, and has been refined and improved over time as the club have been able to collect more data from across the world.

Benham has also only appointed six permanent managers during that time, with Mark Warburton firstly guiding them to automatic promotion from League One in 2014.

After Warburton left the club the following year, replacement Marinus Dijkhuizen lasted just nine matches in charge, winning two of them, before being sacked.

While that appointment didn't work out, Dean Smith stabilised Brentford as a top-half Championship side before leaving for Aston Villa, with Thomas Frank guiding them to the Premier League - and keeping them there - before Keith Andrews took over the reins this summer.

It is testament not only to Brentford's way of operating that former midfielder Andrews, who was set-piece coach last season, has fitted seamlessly into his new role, but also to the fact that they identified a manager with no prior experience at senior level as somebody who could take a Premier League club to the next level.

Brentford's Premier League success this season has been spearheaded by 18 goals from striker Igor Thiago, who was a club-record £30 million buy from Club Brugge in 2024 before missing almost the entirety of last season through injury.

The arrival of Jordan Henderson on a free transfer might have surprised those who questioned if he could still play Premier League football, but the England international has put in consistent performances all season.

Other Brentford signings are driven less by the big-money or experience factor but by the data, with countless examples of that over the years.

Ivan Toney, Bryan Mbeumo and David Raya are all examples of players bought for relatively small fees before being sold on for much more after significant success, while the club also has its own specialist 'B' team - different from the usual U21 structure - to help develop young players.

Speaking at the 2026 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Benham named four more potential Brentford signings that would have netted them even more significant amounts of profit had the moves gone through.

"There's always going to be ones that you regret," he said.

"I was saying before, we could have signed [Eberechi] Eze for four million quid, I think, in 2019.

"We could have signed [Omar] Marmoush on a free, about three years ago. For £4 million combined [both of them] but we didn't.

"The summer we got promoted from the Premier League, there was actually two players who scouted amazingly, amazingly well.

"One was [Mykhailo] Mudryk, which would have been maybe a bit complicated if we signed him. Although we were very close to signing him for a low fee, about €20 million. He eventually went for more like €80 million [to Chelsea].

"Then Michael Olise - his scouting was unbelievable. Just out of this world. But we'd 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, we just stepped away. Even though there was part of us thinking, 'Well, if you combine the transfer fee and the agent fee, it's kind of not too bad'. But the agent fee on it's own was just so insane that we stepped away."