Brentford boss Mark Warburton’s contract will not be renewed this summer despite the Bees being in the hunt for promotion to the Premier League
Brentford have enjoyed a few outstanding seasons under boss Mark Warburton, as they have gained promotion from League One to the Championship.
This season the Bees are in the thick of the race for promotion into the Premier League.
Bizarre
It has now been announced that the Bees will not be renewing Warburton’s rolling contract at the end of the season.
Assistant manager David Weir will also leave the club at the end of the campaign, while coach Frank McPartland has been put on gardening leave until the end of the campaign.
From the outside looking in this looks like a bizarre decision considering how well Warburton has done with limited resources.
It seems that owner Matthew Benham has a different philosophy to the one of the current boss and that is why he is set to leave the club in the summer.
Statement
It seems the decision was made due to Warburton not wanting to work in the new system that the Bees are attempting to implement. The club released a long statement. Here is that statement:
“Matthew (Benham) and members of the Board have been in discussions with manager Mark Warburton and other football staff about the future direction of the club for many weeks, prior to stories appearing in the media last week.
“As part of a remodelling of the club’s football management, a Head Coach will be appointed to work alongside a new Sporting Director. There will also be a new recruitment structure using a mixture of traditional scouting and other tools including mathematical modelling.
“As part of the new recruitment structure, the Head Coach will have a strong input in to the players brought in to the club but not an absolute veto. The club wish to implement these changes in time for the next transfer window that opens this summer.
“The club want the new structure to be a long-term way of working which is independent of whoever is in the Head Coach role.
“Frank, Mark and David have decided, following long discussions with Matthew, that they feel unable to work under the changed structure and approach as it differs from their football philosophy.”
Ambitious
For a club who have just been promoted from the third tier the idea of using a more continental system is a very ambitious one, which does not seem to have been met with universal approval, especially the current boss.
The idea of having a sporting director is not a new one for big clubs. A lot of top clubs have a director of football or sporting director.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. The sporting director can be the man who signs players, but those players may not necessarily fit in with the plans of the man who picks the team, the head coach, and often leads to trouble behind the scenes.
Brentford is a relatively small club in terms of the grand scheme of things and maybe attempting something like this, while losing a boss who has done so well may lead to a downward spiral.
Spiral
Widespread reports in the press over the past few weeks claimed that Warburton’s contract would not be renewed and that the club were talking to Rayo Vallecano boss Paco Jemez about taking over at Griffin Park.
Since those reports emerged the Bees have dropped to seventh in the Championship table after a 3-0 defeat against Charlton and a 2-1 home defeat against Watford.
The speculation seems to have unsettled the players and must have affected the coaching staff, despite their protestations. It would not be difficult to see Brentford now slip down the Championship table and out of the race for promotion to the top-flight.
Gamble
From what I have read about Brentford owner Matthew Benham, he does love the club and is looking at the long-term, rather than just the short term future of the club.
He is being ambitious and is doing what he believes is right for the club. However, changing the whole structure of the club could be the biggest gamble yet.
He has effectively got rid of the man that has made the Bees rise to Championship promotion candidates in favour of a new structure, which may or may not work out for the club.
If these decisions backfire then the Brentford owner may just rue the day that he decided to gamble on the future of his club.
Have Brentford made the right decision by not renewing Mark Warburton’s contract?
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