Brentford

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Brentford and Wolfsburg played out a thrilling 4-4 draw in a pre-season friendly at Gtech Community Stadium.

Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa, Mathias Jensen and Kevin Schade were all on the scoresheet for the Bees.

Ivan Toney, whose future remains uncertain, was among the substitutes but came on at half-time.

Patrick Wimmer scored two goals for Wolfsburg, while Maxence Lacroix and Maximilian Arnold also scored.

"We were very positive going forward, very exciting going forward - that's a big plus," said Brentford boss Thomas Frank.

“Obviously we can also see what we need to work on for the next nine days before we face Crystal Palace: defensive set-pieces, that is clear, it’s normally what we’re very good at.

“But it’s nice that the red flag came today and we’ve got the opportunity to sort it out."

Brentford have agreed a loan deal with a clause to buy, which could become mandatory and worth around £10m, to sign 24-year-old Sweden midfielder Jens Cajuste from Napoli. (Fabrizio Romano), external

Want more transfer news? Read Friday's full gossip column

Pat Nevin
Former footballer and presenter

Right now, brinkmanship is the name of the game. There have been times when some clubs sorted their transfer business early in the window and everyone wondered why so few others followed their lead. Put simply, it isn't in the selling clubs' financial interest, and it usually isn't in the moving player's financial interest either, to go early.

A selling club wants a bidding war to up the price and they don't mind a bit of panic buying when the window is creaking ever nearer the sill. If you still haven't signed that star player who you think, hope or maybe even actually believe, will make all the difference, clubs can get twitchy and make rash costly decisions.

I have watched it happen from within. Good intentions and a willingness to stick to a pre-arranged budget, suddenly evaporates when clubs are bounced into making these calls. There is also a bit of pride in there too. "We aren't losing out on our first choice to that lot!" is a common refrain, especially when it's to one of your close rivals.

As for the moving player, or more specifically his agent, last-minute brinkmanship is the dream scenario. Playing two or three suitors off against each other (and you don't even have to tell the truth of what you are being offered elsewhere) means you can exaggerate as much as you like to up the ante.

So that is why the deals go to the wire, and why they are so lucrative. It is also why I never have too much sympathy for a player, when a huge deal falls through at the last moment. Greed can push it too far in the end and it can all come crashing down, which is why they call it brinkmanship! If you dance on the edge of a volcano you might just fall in.

Brentford are close to signing 24-year-old Sweden midfielder Jens Cajuste on loan from Napoli. (Sky Sports), external

Want more transfer stories? Read Thursday's full gossip column

Nizaar Kinsella
BBC Sport football news reporter

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Midfielder Frank Onyeka is ready to leave Brentford before the summer transfer deadline at the end of August.

The 26-year-old has concerns over a lack of game time in west London under Thomas Frank after failing to get the desired number of starts when returning from an impressive Africa Cup of Nations campaign with Nigeria.

Onyeka is believed to have had options to leave in January, including a loan with option move from Girona, who have since qualified for the Champions League for the first time under City Football Group's ownership.

But different clubs in England, Spain and France are now showing interest in Onyeka on the right terms.

However, it remains unclear what terms would tempt Brentford to sell with a contract until 2027, with an option for an extra year also included in his deal.

Brentford have made a £7m bid to sign Burnley's Republic of Ireland defender Dara O'Shea, 25. (HITC), external

Want more transfer stories? Read Wednesday's full gossip column

Image source, Brentford FC

Long-serving Head of Medical at Brentford Neil Greig has left the club to become Chelsea Women’s head of performance support.

Greig joined the Bees in June 2010 and has played a role in the most successful period in the club's history which has seen them establish themselves as a Premier League team.

Greig has raised over £100,000 for various charities during his time in West London, including for Cardiac Risk in the Young, in memory of former technical director Robert Rowan who died suddenly in November 2018.

"My 14 years with Brentford have been the most rewarding and enjoyable of my career,” said Greig.

"When I walked through the door it was evident that there was a huge project ahead, however there was a clear vision and strategy in place to achieve that and it’s been an incredible journey.

"I’d like to place on record my thanks to the outstanding group of medical and performance staff that I’ve worked alongside during my time at the club along with many others, of whom there are too many to mention them all.

"I’m excited as to what the next chapter of my career will hold but will always look out for Brentford’s results and wish the club ongoing success."

Brentford director of football Phil Giles added: "On behalf of everyone at Brentford I’d like to thank Neil for his outstanding contribution to the club. He has played a significant part in getting us to the Premier League and can be proud of his achievements.

"The role to which he is moving at Chelsea Women is a perfect fit for the next stage of Neil’s career, and we wish him well."

We asked for your thoughts after Saturday's friendly draw between Watford and Brentford.

Here are some of your comments:

Johann: Not the finest of friendly performances by the Bees. Lots of possession but little threat. With a few of the regular team players unavailable lots of the reserves and B team players got opportunities, but none of them really stood out apart from Ryan Trevitt at right-back. Watford’s goal was entirely Flekken’s fault as he was messing about rather than kicking it.

Andy: Despite only the one signing in Thiago, the squad depth looks good enough apart from one glaring problem at full-back. Roerslev does his best but with Henry and Hickey still not fit we risk repeating the same mistake as last season and sides will catch us out. Sign a full-back or two please!

Duncan: I don't know what 11 Thomas Frank will pick for Crystal Palace at the moment because, as always, there are a lot of injuries. We need new players in and as soon as possible.

Paul: I can’t believe we haven’t strengthened. It’s basically the same squad that struggled last season. I fear for the Bees this season, but I hope I’m wrong.

Phil: A good competitive workout and many positives to take into the new season. Defensively solid, midfield creative and the front three dangerous all game. A silly goal to concede but overall a good performance.

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It finished 1-1 at Vicarage Road as Brentford's forward Kevin Schade’s opener was cancelled out by Watford's Moussa Sissoko’s deflected finish.

What did you think about that performance, Brentford fans?

Let us know your thoughts on the match here, external

The Premier League season is fast approaching and clubs are continuing their pre-season preparations.

Here's a look at where teams are in action on a busy Saturday.

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Paris Maghoma has signed a new three-year contract to extend his stay with Brentford until summer 2027.

The central midfielder, 23, is yet to play for Brentford's first team but he made 50 appearances in all competitions while on loan at League One side Bolton Wanderers last season.

Maghoma also scored nine goals and registered seven assists, which saw him named as Bolton's young player of the year.

Bees boss Thomas Frank said: "I'm very happy that Paris has signed a new contract. He has been with the club for quite a while and I have always liked him as a player.

"He has the technical ability and all of the key attributes that you need in the modern game - now it is on him and us to push forward.

"He has developed and matured as a player and a person over these last years, with some great loan opportunities, so it is looking promising for him."

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Brentford goalkeeper Mark Flekken has opened up about working with a mental coach to help him adjust after a difficult few months at the club.

Flekken joined from Bundesliga side Freiburg in May 2023 but endured a difficult start to his career in England, pointing out Joachim Andersen’s equalising goal during the 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace in August as a low point.

"I believe I have a very strong mindset - I have lived through a lot of ups and downs in my career to know what is important for me - but during those first six months I just hit a roof," Flekken told the Brentford website, external.

"Luckily my agent saw that I could not get through that roof by myself. He’s not just my agent any more, he is a close friend. I have been working with him since 2010, so he knows me inside and out. That makes it easier to take criticism from him.

"He came with a brilliant idea in that moment because I could not see it. ‘I’m mentally strong,’ I would tell myself. ‘I can get through this. Keep going, keep going, keep going.’ He broke that wall down and helped me to get on top of my mental struggles."

Flekken was introduced to Ajax's mental coach Joost Leenders who has worked on the mental side of the game one-on-one with Dutch internationals Memphis Depay and Wout Weghorst.

"It was not easy at the start," he added. "How are you going to start those conversations after four months of not being able to show that 100% true performance? But at some point, I just decided to do it.

"Those tiny little bits – and he had a few more of those things - helped me get back to the leader I know I can be. Those little things helped me get on top of everything.

"That led to the point when we played away against Tottenham, which was the first time I walked off the pitch after the game and said to Manu [Sotelo]: ‘Hey, this is me. I am my true self.’

"Tottenham and Man City changed the season for me. All of the pieces of the puzzle fitted together."

We asked for your views on what you would do following the news that club-record signing Igor Thiago is set to be out for a number of months following surgery on a knee injury.

Here are some of your comments:

Darnell: Play Toney, sell Toney, who cares? We've proven we can beat any team in the league.

TZB: Can't realistically let Toney go right away unless somebody comes up with a huge pile of cash, but let's not forget Schade is coming back, and Wissa, Mbeumo and the guys from the B Team stepped up pretty well last season. Torn really.

Christy: The obvious choice is to delay selling Toney until January, we cannot allow ourselves to be short up top again and get dragged back into another relegation battle. It would be nice for luck to swing on our side with injuries soon.

Daniel: Toney wants to go and it's reflected in how he played late in the season so sell him and get another striker. We can't rely on Mbeumo and Wissa up top. We are too injury prone.

Ian: That is just Brentford's luck! I would now keep Ivan Toney until at least January 2025. I hope that Phil Giles has a contingency plan to cover Thiago's absence. Brentford have been linked with players over the summer only for these to fall through. If they are are looking at players due to the latest events, please keep it quiet to avoid more tears.

John: I think the management should think carefully about losing Toney in a transfer deal. The Bees need him. Another season of large scale injuries like last season will almost certainly get them relegated.

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Brentford have said their club-record signing Igor Thiago has had "successful surgery" on a knee injury and he is "expected to return towards the end of the year".

The Brazilian striker, 23, was hurt in the friendly win against AFC Wimbledon earlier this month.

Thiago joined the Bees for £30m from Belgian side Club Bruges.

What would you do now Brentford fans? Tell us here, external

Pat Nevin
Former footballer and presenter

Image source, Getty Images

Players like Manchester United’s Rasmus Hojlund are already suffering from hamstring injuries two weeks before the season even starts - and they say the modern preparation regimes are better, safer and more scientific!

They probably are better. At least the players do not have to go through some of the borderline sadistic routines that previous generations did. Back then, after a decent length of summer break, pre-season meant working incredibly hard over a short period of time to get yourself back in top condition fast.

Sprinting up and down gigantic sand dunes against the clock until many players were physically sick was de rigueur, alongside other road runs and track work.

Here is the weird part: I used to look forward to that, the way a class swot looks forward to exams. Being smaller, lighter and a committed long-distance runner all my young life, even before I became a pro footballer, it was, if not exactly a piece of cake, then certainly much easier for me than most of the rest of the team.

I have asked many modern managers what they would prefer to do in a perfect world during their pre-season. The most common answer is "just about anything other than what we are forced to do now!"

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Mathias Jensen says Brentford "want to improve in every area" next season, with a particular emphasis on being better with the ball.

Jensen scored the opening goal in Tuesday's 3-1 defeat by Estrela da Amadora, as the club concluded their pre-season trip to Portugal.

The Denmark midfielder told club media: "We started alright, the first part of the first half was pretty decent until we scored the goal and then we suddenly got very sloppy and it was not good enough from there."

The Bees finished 16th in the Premier League last season, which was their third campaign since being promoted to the top flight.

Asked about aims for 2024-25, Jensen added: "Hopefully to finish a bit higher than we did last season. The season before that we did very well, but last season we struggled a bit and also with a lot of injuries. Hopefully we can have a fit team without too many injuries, so that we can push even harder.

"We always want to improve in every area, especially on the ball. We know how good we are off the ball, with pressing and the low block, and our big aim is to get better on the ball. Hopefully we'll show that."

Image source, Getty Images

Brentford's pre-season trip to Portugal ended with a 3-1 defeat by Portuguese top-flight side Estrela da Amadora.

Mathias Jensen's deflected strike put the Bees in front in the first half of the behind-closed-doors friendly, but Estrela equalised before half-time and netted twice more in the second period.

Jensen, Mikkel Damsgaard and Christian Norgaard all appeared for the first time for the Bees during pre-season, having been part of Denmark's Euro 2024 squad in Germany earlier this summer.

Image source, Getty Images

Pat Nevin, former Chelsea, Everton and Scotland winger writing in his Football Extra newsletter:

The pre-season friendlies are in full swing and let's be straight about this, the players generally hate these games, whatever they say.

They clearly haven't had enough rest in the summer, it is a grind getting your body back into peak shape, especially if the accumulated injuries from last season haven’t been allowed to fully recover.

The games themselves are weird affairs, where you would like to win but that is nowhere near the most important thing. Fitness, integrating new players, possibly a new manager and sometimes a new system are each more important. You also know full well that it is a hotch-potch of a team selection to give players minutes. The fans, mass media and social media will read far too much into every game and every performance.

From within the team itself, there are different motivations. A young or new player being given his first chance will be racing about like an overexcited spaniel. Other experienced players will be easing themselves back into it, the primary concern in their minds is to be fit and healthy come the first weekend of the Premier League season.

‌Deep down they don't worry if they get thumped by Celtic or DC United on their US tours, nobody at Chelsea or Aston Villa will remember or care about these results in two weeks' time.

‌Unless of course you are a DC or indeed Celtic fan. The Celts just beat Chelsea and Man City. Now that is impressive pre-season form or is that just Scottish bias.

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David Lockwood
BBC Sport Editorial Sustainability Lead

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Los Angeles or Chesterfield? San Diego or Salford?

The pre-season destinations of 20 Premier League clubs may be varied, but the issue remains the same - the impact of so many flights.

Half (10) of the clubs have flown to the United States for friendlies; three have travelled to the Far East and the rest are in Europe and the UK.

Manchester United's pre-season schedule see them flying almost 13,000 miles playing fixtures in Norway, Scotland, and across the US. Chelsea and Tottenham are also expected to fly in excess of 12,000 miles.

In contrast, Everton will fly the least, with just one fixture outside the UK in the Republic of Ireland.

Spurs and Newcastle also played an exhibition fixture in May - three days after the season finished - for which they both flew to Melbourne, Australia, a game Alan Shearer described as “madness”. Add in those air miles and both teams will have travelled in excess of 30,000 air miles in the close-season, equivalent to more than once around the globe, to play in non-competitive matches.

Newcastle and Spurs both have a target to be Net Zero by 2030, while Manchester United and Chelsea are in process of establishing an emissions reduction plan.

Net Zero requires the reduction and removal of all 'non-essential emissions' - so are these games essential?

Wycombe's David Wheeler is a leading sustainability campaigner in football and told BBC Sport: "These games are only necessary in the sense that the clubs want to make more money and grow their fan base".

He added: "The vast majority of players don't want to be away from their families, they don't want to be travelling around the world after a full slog of a season. They're overworked and injuries have gone through the roof, so there is a synergy between player welfare and planetary welfare."

An estimated travelling group of 30 flying 12,864 air miles business class generates around 200 tonnes of CO2 - the equivalent of 500,000 miles driven by an average petrol car, or the entire annual emissions for a year of 16 people in the UK.

Tottenham said it is "committed to minimising its environmental impact" in all its operations, "which will take time and effort". The club says it "ensures" all teams travel "as sustainably as possible throughout the season". It "measures, manages and reports on travel emissions" and will offsets "where possible."

Read more about the Premier League's pre-season air miles here

Nizaar Kinsella
BBC Sport football news reporter

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Brentford striker Igor Thiago is set for a scan on Monday to know the extent of his meniscus injury.

The 23-year-old is hopeful of avoiding surgery after injuring his knee in the 5-2 friendly win over AFC Wimbledon in pre-season last week.

Thiago is a club record £30m signing from Club Brugge and is considered a replacement for England international Ivan Toney, who is expected to leave this summer should a club match Brentford’s valuation.

All parties are hopeful that a pain-free Thiago can avoid surgery and, in the best case scenario, he could return in September after the international break.

Image source, Rex Features

Fin Stevens has joined Bundesliga side St Pauli on a permanent deal from Brentford.

The Wales defender made one Premier League appearance for the club and spent the 2023-24 season on loan at Oxford United.

Speaking to the club's official website Brentford director of football Phil Giles said: "This is an excellent move for Fin.

"He did well at Oxford last season but realistically was in need of at least one more loan before he would be in competition for a full-back role in our first team.

"Sometimes it is therefore better for a player, and better for the club, if that player continues to develop and grow in a new environment with different demands and opportunities."

We asked for your thoughts after Brentford's draw with Benfica in Thursday's pre-season game.

Here are some of your comments:

Charlie: A very good performance, not one weak link. It showed a lot of fans the potential of our squad players as from goalkeeper to the forwards, everybody gave their all for the shirt. Special mention to Vitaly Janelt who showed what a leader he is.

Herzy: Brentford showing that they can not only be a credible Premier League club but can take on a top European side and hold their own. With a mixed first team and B team players they were not out of place. Bring on season four in the Premier League.

Ian: It looks as if some of Brentford's younger players took their opportunity last night. To draw 1-1 against Benfica in Lisbon was not something that I could have imagined in darker days. Brentford are now being recognised for their policy of giving youth a chance. The forthcoming season could be interesting and I am very optimistic. Come on you Bees!

Bryan Mbeumo was on the scoresheet as Brentford drew 1-1 with Benfica on Thursday.

What did you learn from this game, Bees fans?

Let us know your thoughts on the match here, external