Brentford owner lifts lid on missed Omar Marmoush transfer before £59M Manchester City switch | OneFootball

Brentford owner Matthew Benham has revealed he narrowly missed out on signing Manchester City forward Omar Marmoush around three years ago.

The Bees have gained a reputation as one of England’s smartest recruiters in the transfer market since Benham took over. The club’s hiring department uses statistical analysis to hunt emerging talent in Europe not getting enough attention – a strategy crucial to their promotion to the Premier League in 2021.

The west London outfit have gone from strength to strength since. In 2012, the Bees United supporters’ trust voted to give Benham full control of the club. He oversaw a transformation that included investing in infrastructure, building a new stadium in 2020 and a clear recruitment philosophy designed to compete with wealthier clubs.

Attending the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on March 7, Benham discussed Brentford‘s data-driven hiring model and the challenges that come with it.

He asserted that even the best scouting systems cannot prevent missed chances, even though Brentford’s analytical approach has helped the team move up from the English third-tier to the Premier League.

The Brentford owner added that even though the club have prospered over time, they have missed out on a few players who have since become household names – including Omar Marmoush, who burst onto the scene at Eintracht Frankfurt and earned a move to Manchester City in January 2025.

“There are always going to be ones that you regret,” Benham said, as quoted by The Athletic. “We could have signed (Eberechi) Eze for £4 million in 2019 and Marmoush on a free transfer about three years ago.”

Marmoush’s rise demonstrates how quickly the market may fluctuate. After leaving VfL Wolfsburg in 2023, the Egypt international joined Frankfurt on a free transfer and quickly established himself one of the Bundesliga‘s best attackers.

In the first half of the 2024-25 campaign, Marmoush scored 20 goals and assisted 14 times in just 26 outings in all competitions before heading to the Etihad Stadium as an emergency mis-season attacking reinforcement in a deal worth £59 million.

For Brentford, these examples demonstrate the fine margins involved in recruitment. The club’s analytical model has always found promising talent early on but sometimes, deals can’t be completed because of financial issues and complicated negotiations.

Benham’s comments further demonstrate how unpredictable player development can be. For every successful acquisition, there are others that slip away – some of whom eventually become headline transfers elsewhere in Europe.