Exclusive: Mark Warburton is the best manager Brentford have ever had, says Lloyd Owusu



Former Brentford boss Mark Warburton is now in charge of Rangers



THREE months ago Brentford were two games from the Premier League. Today, they are embarking on a huge gamble with the club's future having kicked out the best manager in their history - and former striker Lloyd Owusu has questioned their approach.

 

The Bees, without top-flight football since 1947, lost both their Championship semi-final play-off legs to Middlesbrough, who also failed to make it to football's Promised Land, beaten 2-0 by Norwich in the final. Win or lose, however, former Brentford manager Mark Warburton would still have packed his bags and left.

 

Lloyd Owusu playing for Brentford in 2001

A man who came from relative obscurity following the departure of Uwe Rosler to Wigan in 2013 and guided them to promotion from League One and then to the brink of the Premier League. He has a win percentage of 54 per cent ­- the highest in Brentford's history. For a club who have turned their attention to statistics, it seems incredible that this particular one does not matter one jot.

The gamble Brentford have plumped for is akin to "Moneyball" a film starring Brad Pitt based on the true story of baseball club the Oakland Athletics, whose philosophy is to assemble a team through statistical analysis of players and managing them by identifying key performance indicators within games. In the likelihood that you are confused, you can start to imagine the risk they are taking.

The man behind all this is Brentford owner Matthew Benham, a Bees fan who was part of the consortium who bought the club in 2006 when it was under the chairmanship of Greg Dyke. He became sole owner in 2012 having made his fortune from professional gambling.

 

Benham is already playing out his version of 'Moneyball" with Danish side FC Midtjylland, which he bought for £6.2million last year. They won the Danish Superliga last season, the first trophy in their history.

To provide just one example of how they are crunching the numbers, it has been reported that they are a client of Eye4Talent; a Danish company which, among their statistical research into football, records the number of shots in what they call the 'danger zone', a part of the pitch, from the six-yard box to the edge of the penalty area, in which they say 77 per cent of Premier League goals are scored.

FC Midtjylland's chairman is Rasmus Ankersen, now also Brentford's co-director. Warburton has been replaced by Dutchman Marinus Dijkhuizen, who takes on the role of head coach. Dijkhuizen led Dutch side Excelsior to the Eredivisie but finished just one place above the relegation zone last season.

Ankersen says that 'the fewer goals there is in sport, the more impact random events like the referee making a mistake or the ball hitting the post and going out instead of in, the more impact those events will have. That means, statistically, the best team wins less often than in, for example, handball or basketball. Football coaches say the league table never lies, whereas we say the table almost always lies'.

Statistically, Brentford could have done with fans' favourite and club legend Owusu in those play-off matches. He scored 87 goals in all competitions over two spells with the Bees between 1998 and 2002 and 2005-2007, after being plucked from relative obscurity too, impressing then manager Ron Noades while playing for Slough Town, who were then in the Conference.

 

"My thinking is, if it [Moneyball approach] is supposed to be so sure, why isn't every other football team doing it?" said Owusu.

"It is a bit unfortunate for a guy who has done so well that they [Brentford] are seeing a different vision. Mark Warburton had done a good job. You have to say he is really the best Brentford have ever had based on the results and win percentage to games.

"But they are seeing the way Manchester City are doing things - and I know they are far away from that calibre - but he [Benham] has a lot of money and contacts in the field. But the proof will be in the pudding next season whether it has worked or not and we will see who has egg on their face."

Owusu, 38, retired from football in March and is working as a football coach - a traditional one rather than one entrenched in statistics - at the International Football School in New South Wales, Australia, trying to unearth the next Tim Cahill.

But if Brentford's mathematical approach fails to yield results, would Owusu be prepared to answer the call and return his young family to the UK?

"I've always seen myself as a middle man, an assistant, that's where I see my qualities," he said. "But if they ever called on me it would definitely food for thought. They were the team who gave me my first break in football."

Brentford now need a break of their own. Or maybe is it just a case of the numbers adding up.