Brentford ranked second in global CIES long-term squad study as Bees’ recruitment model earns fresh praise

Brentford’s recruitment model has been thrust back into focus after the club was ranked second in the world for long-term squad management in the latest CIES Football Observatory study, with only Real Madrid placed higher and no other Premier League side within the top five teams. The report assessed clubs across 55 leagues and is based on an index using four indicators: how many players they have used in league matches over the last three years, how long current players have stayed, how much time is left on their contracts, and the age at which they were signed. Brentford’s placing carries genuine global weight. What makes it more interesting is how clearly the club’s recent decisions fit that profile.

This is not just a case of Brentford being labelled “smart” in general terms. The CIES criteria are specific, and Brentford’s recent squad planning lines up closely with them. In January, Kristoffer Ajer signed a new deal through to 2030 with an option for a further year, while last month Igor Thiago extended his own contract until 2031, also with an option. Those are the sort of renewals that directly strengthen the long-term contract picture CIES is measuring.

Brentford’s transfer decisions tell a similar story. Director of football Phil Giles said in February that the signing of 18-year-old striker Kaye Furo was about more than immediate cover, describing it as part of a “succession plan” at number nine after the club had been left with Thiago as its only natural option in that role. At the fans’ forum earlier in the season, Giles made the same point in a different area of the pitch, explaining that Brentford would rather sign a younger player with future value than spend heavily on a short-term fix at full-back while waiting for Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey to return.

That is the sort of thinking CIES rewards. Brentford are not simply buying for the next game or the next month. They are trying to manage the age curve of the squad, avoid churn where possible and keep enough flexibility to absorb inevitable departures and injuries without tearing up the wider plan.

The other part of the story is how Brentford reach those decisions. Technical director Lee Dykes has previously laid out a seven-stage recruitment process in which the club narrows a pool of roughly 85,500 players down to priority targets using a blend of data and live scouting. That matters because Brentford’s model is often reduced to a vague “Moneyball” tag when, in practice, the club’s process appears far more layered than that. The numbers help identify value, but they sit alongside scouting opinion, positional profiling and internal discussion about how a player would fit the squad over time.

There is also a broader structural consistency to the way Brentford operate. When Thomas Frank left for Tottenham last summer, the club promoted Keith Andrews from within rather than making an outside appointment, continuing a pattern Reuters described as a trend of internal succession. That decision did not directly affect the CIES ranking, which is about squad management rather than coaching hires, but it does speak to the same instinct: Brentford tend to prefer evolution over disruption when they believe the framework is sound.

The model is not perfect, and that is part of the picture too. Speaking at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference recently, owner Matthew Benham admitted Brentford had come close to signing Eberechi Eze and Omar Marmoush for a combined fee of around £4 million, while also missing out on Michael Olise and Mykhailo Mudryk. The club’s edge comes from trying to identify players before their price explodes, but even a system this well regarded will leave some missed opportunities behind it.

What Brentford have shown, though, is an ability to survive those misses and the bigger exits. The Club had become especially adept at unearthing players and selling them on for major profits, citing Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney, Saïd Benrahma and David Raya. Toney’s departure to Al-Ahli last August was another example of Brentford cashing in at the right moment, and the groundwork for the next cycle had already been laid with Thiago’s arrival from Club Brugge in a club-record deal in February 2024.

That is why Brentford’s place in the CIES table feels credible rather than cosmetic. It reflects more than one clever transfer or one strong season. It points to a club that has built a repeatable way of working: identify younger talent early, commit to players on longer deals, plan for succession before a problem becomes urgent, and trust the structure enough not to panic when change arrives.

Brentford are still not operating with the resources of the division’s biggest clubs, but this latest ranking is another sign that their way of thinking remains one of the clearest in the game.