Manchester United have been warned Bryan Mbeumo will not leave Brentford unless their valuation is met.
United have spent weeks in pursuit of Mbeumo, who has indicated he wants a move to Old Trafford rather than a reunion with former Bees boss Thomas Frank at Tottenham.
But the latest offer for the 25-year-old Cameroon international, thought to be worth £55million plus add-ons, does not satisfy the London club who expect more than the £62.5m fee paid by United for Matheus Cunha from Wolves.
‘Twenty Premier League goals last year, we expected lots of interest and there has been lots of interest,’ said Brentford’s director of football Phil Giles. ‘Bryan has his own views on what he wants to do with the next part of his career and where he wants to end up, which is fair because it’s his career.
‘Those conversations have been ongoing now for a couple of weeks. We’ve made our point clear that, obviously, having had such a great season, if he earned a massive move now and it was right for us in terms of financially, we’d be open to that.
‘But if he ended up here next season, I wouldn’t be massively surprised. It would be welcome. We’d be delighted. It would save me a massive headache, frankly. And that’s not off the table as well, so let’s see.’
Brentford have already lost head coach Frank to Spurs and four of his backroom staff, and Arsenal are close to signing their captain Christian Norgaard in a deal worth up to £15m.
But they are relaxed, confident in the way they operate, with the knowledge they are stress tested having been through similar summer raids in the past.
‘Do we feel under attack? No it’s great,’ said Giles, as the club unveiled Keith Andrews as Frank’s successor. ‘It’s more worrying when there’s not interest in your players, frankly. It’s good that there’s interest. They deserve interest in them because they’ve done so well. And from some big clubs as well.
‘Every club needs to sell players. You need to be good sellers. Obviously, we’re aware we can’t sell everyone.
‘The reason we can be relatively relaxed about it, is I know we’ve got some really, really good players who maybe haven’t played as much as they perhaps could have done.
‘And you see time and again we’ll sell a player, it’ll create a pathway, another player will step in and suddenly become the next superstar.’
Giles cited replacing Neal Maupay with Ollie Watkins, replacing Watkins with Toney and replacing Toney with Mbeumo and Yoann Wissa last season.
‘We’ve got a brilliant environment,’ said Andrews, who joined the Frank’s staff as a set-piece coach last year after coaching roles at Milton Keynes Dons, the Republic of Ireland and Sheffield United.
‘The staff love coming in and there’s a real collective alignment, right from the top. Football clubs when you have success are built on alignment and good people. All those things tie into what makes this football club a very, very special place.’
Giles summoned the Liverpool Boot Room mentality as he dismissed concerns about promoting from within and exposing Andrews to the glare of the Premier League in his first head coach role.
‘Liverpool used to do it for 30 years when they were the best team around and it worked for them,’ said Giles. ‘I’m not sure when it fell out of fashion. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us.’
