Graeme Jones says Brentford can be a good example of how Luton can progress in the Championship.
The Hatters manager takes his Town side to Griffin Park for likely the last time ever, barring an FA Cup draw, because the Bees will move into their new 17,250-seat stadium from next term.
It has been conceived to provide a sustainable future for the Bees who have outgrown their 12,00-capacity, 115-year-old stadium, having established themselves as a second-tier side for the last five years.
The Bees had similar issues to Luton after winning promotion from League One, in that their stadium can’t provide the revenue to compete with some of the bigger clubs’ playing budgets in the division.
So, on the pitch, the Londoners adopted the Moneyball baseball philosophy pioneered in by Billy Beane at Oakland A’s, with a particular success rate in finding and signing undervalued players, including Andre Gray, who they signed from Luton back in 2014. And despite having one the smallest playing budgets in the division, they’ve achieved four consecutive top ten finishes.
Jones said: “Their method of work is quite different. I think they do things with stats and the old Billy Beane approach, I think. I don’t know that much but I think the owner was into that type of thing.
“We look at stats, but it’s not the fundamental thing we look at at this football club, but I think, growing a football club, they’re a good example.
“They’re a mainstay in the division, they’re always competitive, they’ve got a style of play that they’re quite sure on. It’s quite recognisable, so there’s a lot of good things going on at Brentford.”
The Bees sold star striker Neal Maupay in the summer to Brighton for £20million, but they’ve replaced him with Exeter’s Ollie Watkins for a reported £1.8million.
He’s repaid their recruitment model with 11 goals in 19 appearances.
Jones said: “He can penetrate, he can score goals with his head, with his feet, he interchanges positions with (Said) Benrahma. He can obviously play out wide, he can play through the middle, but it’s another challenge in this league.
“We can go back six days and talk about what Leeds brought to the party. I think we take a lot of comfort that it will be very, very rare that we’ll play against an opposition in this league of that quality.
“We competed, we made decisions and we were really, really good on the day.”
