Steve Cotterill has revealed that he wants Birmingham City to replicate Brentford – both on and off the pitch. In effect, he really wants The Blues to be The Bees. 

The Birmingham manager (not the head coach – so already off on a wrong foot here) has said that he would like to introduce a clear DNA and way of playing at Birmingham City – very similar to Brentford who have defied the odds so far in their time in the Championship – buying undiscovered ‘rough diamonds’ for relatively little money whilst also getting attracting plaudits for their attractive playing style.

Quite a strange thing to say and completely contradicts his captain ex Brentford defender Harlee Dean who claimed in an official club interview that this Birmingham side were “Ten Times Better” than the Brentford team that got to the Premier League Playoff Semi-Final a few years ago. 

We discussed Steve’s dream on this week’s Pride Of West London mini-pod with Davo from Birmingham VideoBlog Davo’s Diaries (below). Davo was a little bit confused it has to be said.

Cotterill understands this is no overnight job (no sh!t sherlock) – but feels it’s well worth doing.

“Their DNA has been clear for a few years now – which is good. It takes years. Then you recruit numbers rather than players. A six for them will do a certain job, the nine will do a certain job, the seven and eleven will do certain jobs. It’s easier then to recruit numbers rather than just collect players and then think ‘Right how are we going to fit them into a team?’

“Normally what happens in the club is there is a philosophy and it comes through the club.

He talked about the way Birmingham currently do business.

“What will happen is you get a lot of players offered you as a manager and people think ‘He’s a good player I will have him’. But you might actually be replicating something you have already got, then you cause yourself a problem because you can’t get them both in a team.

“It’s not about player collecting, it’s about collecting a team together if you can. That’s what we’ll try and do eventually. It could have started a month ago but it didn’t.”

However, Coterill isn’t the first Birmingham City employee to want their club to be ’just like Brentford’. Previous manager Harry Redknapp obviously had that very plan in mind when he bought the ‘Brentford Three’ – Jota, Harlee Dean and Maxime Colin – in the last days of the summer transfer window window – sending over a wheelbarrow with £12m in used £5 notes in return.

Little did he know at the time to fulfil his dream, he would have to also buy:

The other eight players
The seven players on the bench
The head coach
Two assistant head coaches
Director of Football for England
Director of Football for Europe and ROW
Our whole Danish network (who got their team in The Champions League a few years ago)
Technical director
About 50 analysts from the owner’s company Smartodds and their secret player scouting algorhithm
Head of medical
Free kick coach
Head of athletic performance
Goalkeeping coach
Sleep coach
B-team head coach
The actual team coach (what coach?)
The whole B-team
Bob The Kitman
BuzzBee and Buzzette
Mads from the ticket office
The Four pubs on the corner .. and The Globe and The Lord Nelson
Harry Potter

to be ANYTHING close to being like Brentford FC.

Will cost a pretty penny all of that.

So Keep Right On Steve … dreaming of Brentford

And there’s no way you’re having Harry Potter. He’s ours.

And we’ll fight you over that one ’til the death.

Billy Grant
@BillyTheBee99

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