Brentford failed to bring in any new faces but co-director of football Phil Giles is taking a pragmatic view on events.

The Bees saw Jota, Toumani Diagouraga and James Tarkowski leave the club and the co-director of football is aware that the squad can certainly be perceived as weaker.

However, he is keen to take a pragmatic, long-term approach regarding the deals and is keen to see other players step up in their places.

GetWestLondon spoke to Giles on Tuesday afternoon, following the end of the window, and questioned him on all facets of the window. Below are his answers

Jota's departure

"I can't go much into the personal issues. We looked it and felt it was a problem we had to help him resolve.

"Without resolving it, I didn't feel we'd have the player we had last year. There wasn't a situation where he could have been the same player here. Maybe in future years as he's in the best place to get it resolved.

"He's got an 18-month loan, we've got recall options in there should the opportunity arise. It allows us to extend his contract after that. It's a situation that works for both him and us I think."

Toumani Diagouraga leaving

"Rangers were interested. We spoke to Toumani about his situation. He had 18 months on his contract. For him, it was an important contract due to where he is in the career.

"We didn't feel we could offer him what he wanted. The options were to keep the contract ticking down or to sell him if the club met the valuation.

"Rangers didn't and Leeds did so he went there. He was happy with the way it panned out in the end.

"He got the contract which sets him up for the next few years and we were comfortable knowing we had Josh coming into the team.

"We've got Ryan Woods, Alan McCormack and Konstantin Kerschbaumer in there as well."

The James Tarkowski saga

"We took a dim view of him pulling out against Burnley. It happened so we had to deal with it. Having done that, we wanted to continue to offer support.

"The situation still exists. We drew a line under it and we wanted to support him by either getting the valuation and he'd be sold or if that hadn't been met, then he would have been our player and we'd have had to support him.

"It was different to Jota and I think he wanted the finality of moving. The nature of his situation wasn't going to resolve itself over the next six months or a year.

"It's probably best for all parties. It's easy to say that after you get the valuation you want. It's not an onrunning saga.

"The great thing for me is Jack (O'Connell) and Yoann (Barbet) have a great opportunity to fill that gap and we've got Andreas to come back so we've got four good centre backs at the club. I hope we won't suffer from him leaving."

Alan Judge staying

"It was a high valuation because he's a great player but, also, because if Jota, Tarkowski and Toumani leave; we can't afford another one.

"If we had lost him we'd have had to add. I think he's happy enough with the situation. Having talked to him, he sees the benefit of being at Brentford as he's in a strong position to get in the squad. I'm really pleased with that.

"There are a lot of variables in terms of his future. It'd be great for him to get to the Euros. He was on the bench for the play-off game.

"He's on the verge and continued that form. I'd be amazed if he didn't get a chance to show Martin O'Neill what he's about.

"There's been conversations with all our players who are out of contract this summer or have 18 months to go. It's similar to Toumani in that Alan's contract is the big one for his career.

"Given the way he's been playing and his age, he's got to get that right. If Brentford were to give him that contract it's got to be right for us economically. We'd love to keep him long-term and we'll have conversations to get something sorted."

What happened with signings?

"George Evans; we had an agreement with Man City. We were allowed to speak to the player and had an agreement with him but he said other clubs want to put things in front of me.

"I'll put the options in front of me and make a decision. He chose Reading which is a disappointment. We made other offers for players; some were turned down and numbers were put in front of us that were silly numbers so we weren't prepared to pay far more now than we'd hope to have to pay in the summer as teams are like us.

"They don't want to sell their best player if they're close to the top or bottom. It'd be a PR disaster. We'd only do it if the money we've got is ludicrously important to us that we have to make the decision. It makes no sense to us to throw the money around and make the deals happen now."

Is the squad weaker?

"In terms of the immediate aftermath, the team put on the pitch isn't the team we're picking before. In the long term, it depends on whether the players who come in and step up to the plate.

"Can Josh McEachran be a better player than Toumani was? Can we use the funds that we got for the players to strengthen so we're in a stronger position next summer for next season, whatever league we're in."

Are Brentford writing off the season?

"We're not writing off the season. There's 17 games to go and I can see us winning 12 of them. I think we've been unlucky pretty much since Dean came in not to have much more points.

"We were unlucky against Boro and Birmingham. We could have been closer to the play-offs. Realistically, promotion is an outside shot.

"It's most likely we'll be in this division next season and we've allowed Josh Laurent, Ryan Williams and Montell Moore leaving it's about long-term development as well."