Mbeumo and Wissa: Will Brentford's dynamic duo still be there next season?
Brentford currently sit eighth in the Premier League with just two games to play, and if Manchester City beat Crystal Palace in Saturday's FA Cup final that would be enough to secure European football.
A key factor behind Brentford's success this season has been the development of the league's most prolific strike partnership in Brian Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, who have both scored 18 league goals so far.
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Numbers like those have undoubtedly provoked interest in both players this summer, and Thomas Frank has already acknowledged the club would likely listen to offers for Mbeumo for the right price.
On the latest episode of The Athletic FC Podcast, Ayo Akinwolere was joined by Jay Harris and Liam Tharme to discuss whether Brentford should consider cashing in on either of their frontmen when the window opens.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in 'The Athletic FC Podcast' feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Ayo: Thomas Frank recently spoke about the future of Brian Mbeumo in an interview with Sky Sports, and Brentford are very much open to the fact that he might leave. I'm thinking about how they dealt with Ivan Toney and David Raya, and with Toney specifically it was a tricky one, obviously, because of the ban.
I personally thought they priced him a bit too high at the time, which might have put off potential buyers. But with Mbeumo, this is a player you can tell Brentford probably know will be going at some point, so how will they deal with that?
Jay: I don't know if they priced Toney too high. Thomas Frank was asked hypothetically how much Toney would cost, and he pointed out that No 6s like Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo were going for £100million at the time, and strikers are normally more expensive.
But this is a really big summer for Brentford because with Toney and Raya, although they were slightly different situations, they were both allowed to enter the final year of their contracts. Brentford's club-record sale for a long time was Ollie Watkins to Aston Villa, which was about £28m with £5m in add-ons. Raya went for £30m with add-ons by the time his move was made permanent, and Toney went for just over £33m with add-ons.
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Watkins was a Championship player at that time, but Toney and Raya left Brentford as internationals who'd appeared at major tournaments with two to three years of Premier League football under their belts, so they went for under their market value. Brentford can't allow that to happen with Mbeumo or Yoane Wissa because they both have one year left on their contracts too. I should say both of them have one-year options, however, which gives Brentford an extra layer of security.
But this is the summer where they either need to get them to sign extended deals, or they need to say, 'Right, we need to sell them this summer.' Of course, the Toney situation was complicated by the ban. And everybody in an ideal world would have said, 'Goodbye Toney,' at the end of that 2023 season when he'd been performing exceptionally well. So the ban damaged his career and probably damaged Brentford in terms of the money they could get for him. This summer, they'll be very aware of that, and I'd be shocked if Mbeumo and Wissa are both at Brentford at the start of next season.
One of them might be, but I'd be shocked if they're both there. The same also applies to Kevin Schade because he's had a very good end to the season and there has been rumoured interest in him before. It's going to be challenging for them if they lose them and have to replace them, but I think it's something they probably know has been coming.
Liam: If Jay would allow me to, I'm going to present an alternative argument to Brentford cashing in now…
In their second year in the Premier League, they had a really good second season finishing in ninth place, got a really good number of points in 59 and were in European contention until quite late on despite missing out. We're looking very feasibly at a situation where Brentford could have European football for next season for the first time in the club's history. That has to be an attractive thing to keep players and to acquire players as well.
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Even if they do want to cash in on Mbeumo and Wissa, the calibre of player they should be able to attract should be even greater. Of course, they would need to consider their squad depth because they've had some injuries this season, especially in defence. That is the reason for Keane Lewis-Potter and other makeshift things at full-back with Kristoffer Ajer too.
So there'll be different demands needed for squad building in terms of how the model works and how they scale that up to European level. But I think at this present time they could say, 'Even though we can't quickly change our selling model, we're definitely at a moment where you could say this is the least we've ever needed to sell.'
The biggest reason for that, and what they might be saying if they do get Europe is, 'We've got European football now,' and perhaps Spurs or Manchester United, who might be relative options as a natural step up next season, might actually not be in terms of the competitions you could play in.
You can listen to full episodes of The Athletic FC Podcast for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.
(Top Photo: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
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