When words (songs) come back to .....................

May 20, 2022
football betting tips -
 
Premier League: Top 10
 
2021/22 Overall Home Away
P W D L F A Gdf Pts Form P W D L F A P W D L F A
  1 Manchester City 37 28 6 3 96 24 +72 90 XWWW 18 14 2 2 55 13 19 14 4 1 41 11
  2 Liverpool 37 27 8 2 91 25 +66 89 WWXW 18 14 4 0 46 8 19 13 4 2 45 17
  3 Chelsea 37 20 11 6 74 32 +42 71 XWXL 18 8 7 3 35 21 19 12 4 3 39 11
  4 1 Tottenham Hotspur 37 21 5 11 64 40 +24 68 WWXW 19 13 1 5 38 19 18 8 4 6 26 21
  5 -1 Arsenal 37 21 3 13 56 47 +9 66 LLWW 18 12 2 4 30 16 19 9 1 9 26 31
  6 Manchester United 37 16 10 11 57 56 +1 58 LWXL 19 10 5 4 32 22 18 6 5 7 25 34
  7 West Ham United 37 16 8 13 59 48 +11 56 XWLL 19 9 5 5 33 26 18 7 3 8 26 22
  8 Wolves 37 15 6 16 37 40 -3 51 XLXL 19 7 3 9 20 25 18 8 3 7 17 15
  9 1 Leicester City 37 13 10 14 58 58 +0 49 XWWL 18 9 4 5 30 22 19 4 6 9 28 36
  10 -1 Brighton & HA 37 11 15 11 39 43 -4 48 XWWX 18 4 7 7 16 22 19 7 8 4 23 21
  11 2 Brentford 37 13 7 17 47 54 -7 46 WWLO 18 7 3 8 21 19 19 6 4 9 26 35
  12 2 Newcastle United 37 12 10 15 42 61 -19 46 WLLW 19 8 6 5 26 27 18 4 4 10 16 34
  13 -2 Crystal Palace 37 10 15 12 49 46 +3 45 LXWW 18 6 8 4 26 17 19 4 7 8 23 29
  14 -2 Aston Villa 37 13 6 18 50 51 -1 45 XXLW 19 6 5 8 29 29 18 7 1 10 21 22
  15 Southampton 37 9 13 15 42 63 -21 40 LLLX 19 6 7 6 23 24 18 3 6 9 19 39
  16 Everton 37 11 6 20 42 61 -19 39 WLOW 19 9 2 8 27 25 18 2 4 12 15 36
  17 Burnley 37 7 14 16 33 51 -18 35 XLLW 18 5 6 7 17 23 19 2 8 9 16 28
-- 18 Leeds United 37 8 11 18 40 78 -38 35 XLLL 19 4 6 9 19 38 18 4 5 9 21 40
-- 19 Watford 37 6 5 26 33 75 -42 23 LOLL 19 2 2 15 17 46 18 4 3 11 16 29
-- 20 Norwich City 37 5 7 25 23 79 -56 22 XLLL 18 3 3 12 12 38 19 2 4 13 11 41
 
Last July I wrote the following ................
 
Brentford, my Brentford !
 
Quite a few readers have been with clubgowi since the very early days of Gambling and Other Wholesome Interests (GOWI) and several of you have developed an interest in Brentford , the club that I have followed since my childhood, with my family association going back to at least the 1920's. Until 2014 they had spent all but one season during my lifetime in the third or fourth tier of english football, since when they have been a Championship side and on May 29th this year, they finally made it to the Premier League via the playoffs.
 
It still feels a little like a dream to me and I doubt it will all really sink in until they run out onto the pitch against Arsenal on August 13th, but it does feel like time to look at their top flight prospects. To provide some background information on this uniquely run club, we can start with something I wrote last October .......
 
Brentford are the single team we discuss the most and for obvious reasons, not only are they my team, but they are owned by Matthew Benham who also runs Smartodds, who have led the way in qualitative research and analysis on various football leagues from around the world.  But it is the huge success that Brentford have enjoyed in competing at the top end of the Championship for multiple seasons on a tiny playing budget, whilst making a £100m  + PROFIT in the transfer market that has caught the attention of the greater footballing world and helped the growth in analytics. Other small clubs might try to copy Brentford's blueprint, but they are not going to have access to the (probably) hundreds of people that Smartodds employ, but the Bees are a fun, interesting and innovative team to watch and read about, and that is why dozens of knowledgeable football fans from all over Europe turn up every home game to watch a small club in a West London outpost.
 
It is more than that, it is not just the players that Brentford sign, but how they are developed at the club, with the Bees light years ahead of other teams in this regard and I include in that many, if not most of the big european names. Much of what has gone on behind the scenes has been along Premier League (and beyond) lines for many years and I was telling you back in 2012 -2013 when they were in League 1 that they were a third tier team only for so long and in name only. You were amongst the first to know all about Brentford and their innovation, now 8 years later there have been hundreds of articles on the club, some of which are good , but many of which still do not quite get it.
 
For those of you interested in the club and you all should be, as anything good in sport is always copied, I suggest you read this article written by David Anderson, a Brentford fan interested in analytics, it is basically an interview with Brentford's 24yo First Team Performance Analyst Joe Newton , who details his role, what a typical week entails and gives a unique insight into the how the club is run and where they opt to spend money .
 
Talking as we were earlier about development of players, head coach Thomas Frank spoke about this a little last week and the gist is that Brentford 100% believe that no other club can get more out of a young player and it is a complete process that starts with analytics highlighting a candidate, who is then scouted and a decision made on whether to try to sign him. If the decision is yes, they then meet with the player and his agent and I have heard that many of them are shocked at the next stage, which is very much a job interview for the player and agent and presentation for the club. First up, two senior members of staff attend, which in itself is unusual, it might include Frank, the two Directors of Football , or even the owner. This could last several hours, the player and agent are shown a video film of how the club plays, what demands there are for that role /position, film of the Brentford player currently in that position and what the prospective signing could bring to the party. Player and agent are expected to contribute throughout, to ask and answer questions .
 
The Brentford group then detail the culture at the club and demands on the players both on and off the pitch, the work rate and ethic required, desire to improve and the togetherness at the club, this is viewed as important as the skill set of the player(s) and only those who will be a good fit, regardless of ability will be offered a contract. In fact, Frank said the club would sooner have a player with 80% of the ability they were looking for if he had 100% of the right attitude, rather than the reverse, with the mantra that "culture is everything". Everyone with the right mindset will improve as both a player and man at Brentford.
 
The process doesn't end there, if the two way interview goes well and the player ticks all the boxes and wants to sign, Brentford will then complete a series of background checks , including taking references from former teammates and/or coaches. When he finally arrives at the Jersey Road training ground, then the hard work starts !
 
Brentford are in a good place, they have a brand new debt free stadium at Lionel Road, a short walk from their former home of Griffin Park, play an attacking brand of football which is much admired and have an analytics department and recruitment policy that many would like to copy/replicate, but with no realistic chance of doing so. They have had to do things differently and competed/thrived for seven years in the Championship on an unfair financial playing field, with a bottom 3-6 budget and always staying with FFP rules, whilst other, already "better off" clubs, flouted them.
 
Now the Bees have circa £160-170m of guaranteed Premier League income, but in reality, nothing much has changed and they cannot compete in salary terms with, well, any other top flight club. So in terms of recruitment, whilst they can afford to pay more in transfer fees for players, arrivals will still be young and with growth potential, rather than the finished article and Brentford will have to continue to sell the project and the player to buy into it. A 22-23 yo prospect knows he might earn more money elsewhere, but that at Brentford he is likely to start games and will almost certainly grow and improve with the innovative and intense coaching as both a player and individual.
 
Brentford should have been promoted in 2019-20 when they were statistically inferior only to champions Leeds United , they eventually finished third after blowing two chances to clinch the second automatic promotion spot.They went into the playoffs an overwhelming favourite being at least 29 xP and a net +170 for ITB better than the other three teams, but were a heartbreaking "no show" in the final against a local rival in Fulham. They then lost their two star players in Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma and had to do a mini rebuild and try to restore self belief in double quick time with no real off season .
 
They started slowly as you might expect and were 11th through 12 rounds, but a 21 game unbeaten run took them top in February, before they once again let things slip and were left entering the playoffs for a 10th time with a 0/9 record. But this time justice was done and promotion earned. The Bees were once again top 2 statistically in the Championship across 46 games, in fact, they were #1 with an xP of 100 points, with fellow promoted teams Norwich and Watford on a respective 87 and 81, taking the next two spots.  
 
If we look at those two campaigns, in the first Brentford had an Xp total of 101 , I know that ,and not for the first time,  the Brentford analytics team considered that both they and Leeds were top 12 in England (including all EPL teams of course). You can argue that United justified that by finishing 9th in the Premier League in 20-21. Last season Brentford had a very similar 100 xP's and collected that total with the second youngest squad in the Championship and with three key players absent for much of the second half of the campaign. I do not know where the Bees or Smartodds data department ranked that performance in the bigger scheme of things this time round, but they came out circa 11th in my own ratings and did beat four top flight teams in the League Cup, two on the road. ESPN ranked them 15th on their SPI index, but very close to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 13th. Therefore,10th -16th feels like an OK starting point.
 
My own opinion is that to do well in the Premier League as a promoted team you have to be brave, not play scared and have an identity, I think that Leeds United, Aston Villa and Bournemouth have fitted that profile in recent years and ultimately thrived, the Cherries only failed when they switched to a more defensive playing style, after an offensive one had served them very well for 6-7 seasons, go figure ! I would cite Fulham last season ( under Scott Parker's "leadership"), Huddersfield and Middlesbrough as prime examples of teams who have recently come up with a negative approach and mindset and would argue that it ultimately left the last two in a worst state overall, both in terms of league position and finances, than prior to their promotion runs. I expect Brentford to fit into the first category, they might not be as gung-ho as Leeds, but will take the game to any and everyone at times and play on the front foot as often as possible and rarely be willing to settle for a point.
 
They are young as a group, so should continue to improve and there are many supporters who are of the opinion that players like Mathias Jensen and Christian Norgaard, who were both in the Danish squad which made the Euro semi finals, will be better suited to EPL football. Contracts were not renewed for three players,  Henrik Dalsgaard who wanted to return home and he joined FC Midtjylland (another Mathew Benham owned team) , Emiliano Marcondes who has signed for Bournemouth and back up goalkeeper Luke Daniels. All planned and no significant losses to date compared to previous seasons. Top Championship scorer Ivan Toney would usually attract a lot of interest, but Bees are not willing to sell and his price tag will put off almost all prospective buyers in the current financial market.
 
They have added DM Frank Onyeka from Midtjylland and CB Kristoffer Ajer from Celtic for a combined £21m rising to £25-26m ,or numbers close to that, another similar signing is expected before the end of the month, possibly even today and as I understand it, that will not be the end of the incoming. The club have identified a type of player they want for the PL and most new signings will add athleticism and pace and they will bring something similar to Leeds in that regard.
 
Brentford's director of player recruitment Lee Dykes gave a lengthy interview to Michael Walker of The Athletic which was published earlier this week and I can pick out just a few lines which should give further insight into how the club is run and forward thinking they are ...................

It’s not simply about survival, it’s about establishing ourselves as a Premier League team.

Brentford have bought and sold so shrewdly and profitably that they have become a template club. Benham’s focus on data, and creating and curating your own, not relying on others, has given Brentford an edge in recruitment and a profile as young, fresh and inventive.

Buying Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma for a combined £9.8 million and selling them for £77 million raises eyebrows of appreciation in recruitment circles. Deciding to work without an academy and to instead use a B team is another illustration of a club that thinks and behaves differently.

Brentford were looking for a head of recruitment. They advertised the role, because they do it that way.

“It was a perfect match — I knew about the structure of clubs, I had a coaching background, I’d built an algorithm. Those were major box-ticks for them. There were bigger and better people than me in for the role but Brentford understood the complexity of the situations I’d been in and the relative success from those, the ability to work on a budget.

“They’re a strategy-driven club, which was geared towards achieving promotion to the Premier League. That was the basic aim — it was a lot more detailed than that. These men have a plan, which is different from others I’ve met who think they have a plan. Rasmus and Phil are two unbelievable people — with a plan. They don’t deviate from it and they trust people.

When Dykes arrived in May 2019, Brentford had just finished 11th in the Championship, their fifth season in the division following 2014’s promotion under Mark Warburton. It was acceptable, if not thrilling, but as Dykes says, those at the top: “Saw a real opportunity.

“They’d sold players like Ezri Konsa and Chris Mepham. Because of the financial constraints on so many other Championship clubs, they saw a two-to-three season chance to go to the Premier League. That was what really pulled me in. When Phil and Rasmus first met me they said they weren’t restricted by financial fair play, (that) they could invest. ‘If the recruitment is good and the coaching is good, then we can get there’.

Raising overall quality to lift individual valuations sounds like a simple equation. Pulling it off requires thought and nous.

“It was something we discussed before I took the role,” Dykes explains. “How do we get there? It can’t just be: ‘Sign better players’. The season before I arrived they had Maupay, Watkins, Benrahma — all Premier League players. They had the players but finished 11th. They also had Romaine Sawyers. So what was missing?

“What was missing was experience. Experience is invaluable. It’s all well and good coaching players, but what are they saying in the changing room when nobody’s there? Are they talking about a nightclub or promotion? That’s the thing.

“In 2019, we signed Pontus Jansson from Leeds, which surprised everybody; Ethan Pinnock, who was 26 and the best defender in League One; and David Raya out of Blackburn. Rico Henry we already had. We’d signed Christian Norgaard from Fiorentina when he was 25. People were saying to me, ‘This ain’t Brentford’.

“But we were thinking about promotion. There’s a real togetherness. If you lose three in a row, which can happen, there’s confidence — ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get out of this’. There’s a massive thing about building a squad rather than a group of individuals. When we lost Said and Ollie, people were concerned. We brought in Ivan Toney, Vitaly Janelt from (the second division in) Germany, Charlie Goode from Northampton. They slotted in seamlessly because of the experience around them, all this know-how.”

As Dykes says, it is all experience and it has given him alternative perspectives on recruitment. He, for example, operates on 16 positions on a pitch.

“When I came in I had to bring something to the table, because Brentford were very good at recruitment,” he says. “Part of the remit was aligning thinking across structure and process. I had to get everyone thinking the same and I do believe there are 16 positions on the pitch. For example, there’s an 11 and an 11A. It’s a left winger — the 11 is Ryan Giggs, outside, left-footed; the 11A is Cristiano Ronaldo when he was on the left, coming inside and playing almost like a striker.

“I built this system because it’s too easy for scouts to say, ‘There’s the top three wide players’. No, because in the past two seasons and the one before, Brentford have changed formation at critical points. The 16 positions mean we’re never caught out. So all of what we do is tailored towards that. If I click on South America, we have the best players in all 16 positions, if we switch to Germany or Asia, it’s all there. Right down to the Isthmian League. There are roughly 765 players in that league and we can tell at any time how they are doing.”

This, he stresses, is just the identification stage. Scouts will then be assigned. And along with the usual information, another telling question will be asked: “Is this player ready to be a professional footballer?”

“Biological age is something we take into account of course,” Dykes says. “But there is an assessment to be made in terms of maturity. Let’s leave the physical aside and ask: ‘Is this player ready to be a professional footballer?’. It’s a question people don’t ask but it’s key. Is a player ready to play away at Elland Road? It’s part of football, a massive part. We defend zonally, so if it’s a defender we’re looking at, we’re asking if they can take that on board. People underestimate how hard it is to be a professional footballer.

“At Brentford, we have logistics people to help players settle. Our motto is happy off the pitch, happy on it.
 
This fits owner Benham’s holistic approach. Brentford’s rise is about social intelligence as well as data. Benham wants Brentford to out-think competitors, not out-spend them. As Dykes says: “It’s Matthew’s way of thinking. We were one of the first clubs to employ a throw-in coach, a set-piece coach, we were the first to employ a sleep coach. We teach young players how to cook. We have all these things that we plough into individual development.”

Preparing for and reacting to Brexit has also occupied Benham’s management team and if there are recruitment trends caused by the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, one will be a new emphasis on domestic signings, another will be a growth in South America’s presence in the Premier League. Benham also owns FC Midtjylland in Denmark. Dykes is their head of recruitment too. It means he is fully aware of differing regulations.

“It’s been huge,” he says of Brexit. “But we were prepared for it. Fin Stevens and Aaron Pressley, players we recruited for the B team, might have been Europeans or Scandinavians before, but there’s been a shift with GBE — Governing Body Endorsement. A lot of under-valued markets have been closed off by GBE. In the last few weeks, they’ve relaxed it a bit with under-21s.

“But as the EU closes, we can go to South America and Asia. There’s an opportunity and we’ve seen players in Uruguay. You’ve just seen Yerson Mosquera join Wolves for £4.5 million. Twelve months ago, we could have only considered them for Midtjylland. Now he can go to England. Moises Caicedo, another one, has gone to Brighton. They’re from Colombia and Ecuador, Midtjylland have just signed Brazilian midfielder Charles from Ceara in Fortaleza."
 
Matthew Benham has recently sold a 25% share in Midtjylland to super wealthy Anders Holch Poulsen who is Denmark's richest man, one of the biggest landowners in the UK. Not many multi billionaires are happy with a small share in things for long, or to operate on a small stage, when a bigger one is out there and if this partnership works well, I would not be surprised were AHP to increase his stake and beyond that, investment in Brentford is not out of the question and it appears the two men have similar outlooks on life and what is important. I have no inside knowledge and might be adding 2 +2 and getting 6, but it seems almost logical to me and MB is not super rich and whilst it is all relative and seems wrong to even mention it about such a private man, Benham has to be one of the "poorest" EPL owners and has, apparently, entertained the investment possibility before. I am sure he can take the Bees to midtable, maybe top 10, but to regularly compete for European places is a whole other ball game and £100m of television money is a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the yearly £500-£800m income of the "Big Six" clubs. It is a "closed shop" cartel and to break into it,  you need a financial sledgehammer, innovative thinking is not enough on it's own. But that is for the future.

 

I expect Brentford to survive but have no interest in odds of 1.72 about much at all, let alone something I have to wait nine months for !
 
To finish top half is a big ask, but so too are the odds @ circa 9.0-10.0 , Leeds did it last season and were a similar side to Brentford in 19/20 and United are priced at 1.70 to repeat, which has to give Brentford a chance and I feel it is more a 20% than 10% prospect and that is all I personally need to know and I suggest that is decent value and good enough for 1.75 units.
 
The point of reproducing those notes are three fold, firstly, they are worth re-reading as there is a lot of real interest, not least the new direction the EPL will be looking towards for players and we can expect teams like Brentford and Brighton to be leading the way in that regard, secondly, the Bees can still finish top 10 and finally, it highlights what we are always looking for and that is value and if something is a 5.0 and we can get 10.0 we have to bet and everything put up has an expected value of some sort, for example we might bet what I think is a chance 2.20 at 2.50 and that is great and will almost always result in a profit long term, but on the day, even that circa 45% chance ( 2.20) has a 55% chance of not winning. All sports/ leagues covered make a long term profit, if not they will be dropped (either for a while or permanently) which has happened to one league currently and another is on "probation", but we might have very different ideas about what "long term" is. 
 
To finish top 10 the Bees need to beat Leeds United (and for Brighton to slip up against West Ham ) who have the biggest motivation you can have, which is to remain in the EPL, but I spoke last week, ahead of their trip to Everton, about Brentford just not being the type to go through the motions and they are themselves motivated  to finish as high as possible and, although head coach Thomas Frank has attempted to play it down this week, United were disrespectful to him and Brentford when they went up from the Championship and the associated video of that has been played a lot in build up to this game and not been forgotten . The saying "be careful how you treat people on your way up, because you will meet them on your way down " feels appropriate, but it obviously bypassed that part of Yorkshire !
 
There is also a rivalry between the owners of Brighton and Brentford so an extra incentive for both. The Bees are now 4.50 to finish top 10, so we have value on final day, but it is tough to see them as top 6 for xP and look at that run from Boxing Day when they took just 4 points from a possible 44 and realise the most likely scenario is that we will come up a couple of points short, but as always, nil desperandum !
 
Good luck !
 

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Country: 
England
Sport: 
Football
Competition: 
English Premier League
Football Teams: 
Brentford
Leeds United

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