You are running a Championship club with hopes of promotion, and your best striker, the second top scorer in the division, has just been sold to a Premier League side for £16 million. What do you do next?

The obvious response is the one most clubs would make: gather up the money, buy a replacement, go again. Most clubs are not like Brentford, though, and in this part of west London the obvious answer is not always what the wider world might expect.

When Neal Maupay left for Brighton in August, Brentford did not panic. The long-term vision had been mapped out, and the natural step was for Ollie Watkins, previously a winger, to be converted into their new centre-forward. “We had a big belief that he could develop into a top striker,” says Thomas Frank, Brentford’s head coach.

Five months later, Watkins is the joint-leading scorer in the Championship, where Brentford are firmly ensconced in the play-off places. “He stepped up,” says Frank. “He is now the best striker in the division.”

The transformation of Watkins, now worth at least £20m, is but one small example of Brentford’s way of operating. He makes for a good poster boy for their methods ⁠— signed from lowly Exeter City at 21, then developed with care and attention — but he is far from the only one.