Billy Grant looks at Brentford’s transfer deadline day dealings blow by blow. How near. And far. Were we from losing. And gaining players?

You can check Brentford’s full deadline day dealings on the Deadline Day podcast (below). 

So the transfer window is closed shut.

Thank god for that Bees fans said

And Brentford came out of it relatively unscathed. In fact if anything, we had more positives than negatives.

However, you cannot gloss over the fact that we sold our 28 goal-a-season striker and failed – for whatever reason – to replace him.

The Beesotted crew sat by the banks of a sunny river Thames on Transfer Deadline Day to record their transfer deadline podcast.

They witnessed the comings. The goings. The gossip. And the shenanighans LIVE as it was going down.

You can check the podcast by clicking on the link below.

But here is a summary of what went down minute by minute with Brentford on transfer deadline day

Time – 12.01am
Status – Reportedly signed. No official announcement

Halil Dervişoğlu
Sparta Rotterdam
Forward
19 years

Overnight, local Dutch media were claiming that Halil Dervişoğlu had signed from Sparta Rotterdam.

The Dutch striker of Turkish origin scored 10 goals in 26 appearances seeing Sparta Rotterdam promoted from the Dutch 2nd Division last season

However, there was no official word on the striker joining Brentford despite the news reports

Time: 10.01am
Status – Signed

Dominic Thompson
Arsenal
Left Back
19 years

Brentford signed Dominic Thompson from Arsenal on Wednesday – announcing him as their first signing on the Thursday morning.

Thompson joined Arsenal’s academy at 12 and was a member of the team that reached the Youth Cup final in 2018.

The 19-year-old left-back featured for Arsenal in their pre-season friendlies against Colorado Rapids, Fiorentina and Angers and was also part of the squad that travelled to Barcelona last weekend

Brentford had been looking to increase their left-back options – trying to sign players like Derby’s Max Lowe. But Derby were not happy about selling Lowe to a rival club.

Thompson comes to Brentford highly rated and it was a surprise that Arsenal let him go.

Phil Giles, Brentford FC Co-Director of Football, said:

“We have been looking to add some strength to our full back options and we hadn’t thought that Dom would become available until the very end of the window. When it became possible to sign him, we closed the deal quickly”

Thomas Frank, Brentford FC Head Coach described Dominic as

“A technically very good left back or left wing back. He can pass the ball well and deliver good crosses. He also has a very good mentality and wants to defend”.

More interestingly, Brentford see him very much as a first team player with Thomas Frank stating

“Dominic will be competing with Rico Henry for our left wing back position.”

Henry, who was loosly linked to a transfer away from the club this window, has had a history of injury. So to finally have a dedicated left-back who is able to step in when needed will really add value to the squad.

Time – 10.30am
Status – Club confirms talks with Brentford

Halil Dervişoğlu
Sparta Rotterdam
Forward
19 years

Sparta heeft op enkele details na een akkoord met Brentford over een transfer van Halil Dervisoglu. De aanvaller is niet op de training. Hij is vandaag in Londen voor een medische keuring en om een akkoord te bereiken. Meer informatie volgt later.

— Sparta Rotterdam (@SpartaRotterdam) August 8, 2019

Sparta Rotterdam officially announced that Halil Dervisoglu was talking to Brentford.

“Sparta has a few details after an agreement with Brentford about the transfer of Halil Dervisoglu.

The attacker is not in training. He is in London today for a medical examination and to talk about an agreement with Brentford.

More information will follow later.”

Time – midday
Status – Negotiating personal terms

Saman Ghoddos
Amiens SC
Forward
25 years

The word was out that Brentford was after Saman Ghoddos – the Swedish striker signed by Graham Potter when he was at Östersunds.

He signed for Amiens SC in France for a fee of €4m – the third-most expensive transfer in Allsvenskan (Swedish top division) history after Alexander Isak and Zlatan Ibrahimović.

The fee had been agreed with Amiens. It was just down to personal terms.

Several news sources had reported the deal as ‘all but done’.

Time – 12.37pm
Status – Signed

Halil Dervişoğlu
Sparta Rotterdam
Forward
19 years

Spartak Rotterdam manager Henk Van Stee confirmed during an interview with Fox Sports that a deal had been agreed to sell Turkey U19 striker Halil Dervişoğlu to Brentford in January 2020.

🤝 | Halil Dervisoglu gaat @SpartaRotterdam per 1 januari verlaten voor Brenford. Er is geen sprake van een huurconstructie, aldus Van Stee.

Bekijk het hele interview hier:https://t.co/NcvgHWyhGB pic.twitter.com/iEWlAZyScJ

— FOX Sports (@FOXSportsnl) August 8, 2019

He also confirmed that there would be no loan-back deal.

The fee was around £2.8m

The 2020 arrival of Dervişoğlu  wasn’t a huge issue as the assumption was Ghoddos was in the bag.

Or was it?

Time – 2.54pm
Status – deal broken down

Saman Ghoddos
Amiens SC
Forward
25 years

News started to circulate on social media that the Ghoddos deal had broken down.

Swedish newspaper Sport Expression stated:

“The deal has broken down and Ghoddos is flying home to France tonight. The 25-year-old and the club failed to agree on a personal contract”

Time – 4.45pm
Status – Staying

Saïd Benrahma
Brentford
Winger
23 years

This came like a bolt out of the blue and was received like a new signing.

Said Benrahma revealed on his instagram page that he would be playing for The Bees this season and would be donning the No 10 shirt vacated by Josh McEachran.

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Le bonheur est un état d’esprit, pas une destination. I AM READY COME ON BEES 🐝❤️! #newgoals #SB10 #brentfordfc

A post shared by Benrahma (@saidbenrahma11) on Aug 8, 2019 at 8:37am PDT

With Dean Smith Villa trying to lock down his former play-maker, the Midland team – who had offered £15m for Benrahma – were not able to match the £25m that The Bees were looking for to prise the winger away from Griffin Park.

Hopefully, all the rumours of tantrums and being sent home from training can be put behind him and he can knuckle down to some hard work. Get himself fit. And cause Charlton a few problems when they go there in a few weeks time (assuming it will take him at least a couple of weeks to get himself match ready).

Time – 4.58pm
Status – Not signed

Lyle Taylor
Charlton
Forward
29 yrs

Word was out that Brentford had made a last-ditch attempt to sign Charlton striker Lyle Taylor. This £4m was an improvement on the previous £3m bid that the Bees had put in but was rejected by Charlton who wanted more money for their frontman.

Peterboro rejecting Charlton’s bid of £4m for Ivan Toney at around 4pm may have also had something to do with then rejecting the Taylor bid.

Also the level of abuse being targeted at the owner by Charlton fans may have deterred them from selling him – realizing that his move to Brentford would be like poking a wasps nest.

Incidentally, Lyle Taylor announced he was retiring from twitter for a while after getting untold abuse from a section of Charlton fans for potentially moving to West London.

Time – 5.30pm
Status – Not signed

Saman Ghoddos
Amiens SC
Forward
25 years

News emerged late in the day that there was apparently an issue with Ghoddos – having ‘signed’ to a Spanish club SD Huesca last summer before pulling the deal last minute.

Ghoddos even had the obligatory photograph in a Huesca shirt promoting the transfer.

Huesca claimed that they had a written agreement with Östersunds and this seemingly – even one year later – had not been cleared up. One can only assume Huesca were looking for a piece of the rather larger financial pie that was now flying around.

Anyway, seemingly that was not the main issue that scuppered the deal.

The Huesca shenanigans was apparently sorted (somehow) by the time the two parties sat down to talk.

But our sources from Sweden have told Beesotted that the deal broke down in the negotiation stage – with Ghoddos’ agents (and apparently he has quite a few) continually moving the goalposts.

Brentford were willing to negotiate by all accounts but as goalposts kept moving, Brentford unfortunately had to walk away from the deal.

We discussed this on the Deadline Day podcast and we believe that Brentford may have dodged a bullet here. We could see his agents angling for a move for him in January if he were are Brentford and with us riding high in the top six.

Ghoddos apparently is a really nice guy. However, it seems that Thomas Frank had to apply his “No dickheads” theory to his agents. And not the player in this case.

As they say. Choose your friends carefully.

Time – 6.00pm
Status – Signed. But no official announcement

Halil Dervişoğlu
Sparta Rotterdam
Forward
19 years

The transfer window had been shut for a full hour and there was still no announcement of Dervişoğlu?

Had the deal fallen through?

Not according to Sparta Rotterdam

Maybe Brentford were working on getting Dervişoğlu in before the agreed 2020 signing-date. Very much like what they did when we signed James Tarkowski on a loan-back deal to Oldham. That time, things didn’t go according to plan and we ended up taking Tarky from day one rather than sending him off to Oldham.

Will Brentford get themselves a late transfer deadline day present?

Watch this space

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