Brentford are renowned for their ability to unearth hidden gems in the transfer market and turn them into superstars.

Indeed, following the sale of Chris Mepham to Bournemouth in January, it was calculated you could make a Brentford XI that was bought for £6.7million and sold for £71.3m.

The Bees, backed by their owner Matthew Benham, have an ability to find value in a transfer market that has seen fees inflate year after year and they do all that while continuing to compete in the Championship - and build a new stadium.

However, of all the players that have walked through the doors at Griffin Park it may turn out that Neal Maupay proves to be the biggest bargain.

The striker is likely to be one of the hottest properties in the transfer market this summer after he enjoyed a breakout season in English football.

Despite Brentford finishing 11th, the 22-year-old racked up with 25 goals in the Championship, a tally only beaten by Teemu Pukki of the division’s winners, Norwich City.

One suspects Maupay will be at the top of the shopping list of whichever club wins the play-offs this month and indeed Aston Villa, who are coached by former Bees boss Dean Smith, were linked with a £20m move in the January transfer window.

Given Maupay’s success, which saw him named EFL Player of the Year at the London Football Awards in February, a move for such an amount does not seem out of the question.

However, back when the striker joined Brentford from Saint-Etienne in 2017, the Bees paid just £1.6m to sign him.

It was a move that took many by surprise at the time, not least Brighton who, having gained promotion to the Premier League had made a move for Maupay.

They were ready to offer the 22-year-old higher wages than Brentford, while the lure of top-flight football and their state-of-the-art training facilities had the Bees fearing they had lost out.

But Maupay opted to push ahead with a move to London, won over by Brentford’s style of play and the promise of regular first-team football.

There was a certain irony in the striker searching for playing time given that is exactly what he got in 2012 when he made his debut for Nice at the age of 16 years and 32 days.

It was a bold move by the French club’s boss back then, Claude Puel, but he has always had faith in young players. Indeed it was Puel who gave Eden Hazard his professional debut at 16 while in charge of Lille, while during his most recent stint at Leicester City he also gave youth a chance.

However it was clear for everyone, not just Puel, that Maupay was special and deserved his opportunity. He may have been a teenager and relatively small in height, but the striker had a fight in him that made him ready for men’s football.

Those in Nice’s academy likened him to Carlos Tevez and Sergio Aguero, partly due to his South American roots (his mother is Argentine), but also because of his turn of pace and his ability to hold defenders off.

Those at the club particularly remember a Coupe De France game in 2014 against Marseille when, still a teenager, Maupay played upfront alone and held his own against 6ft 2in centre-back Souleymane Diawara. Nice won 5-4 with Maupay scoring.

A serious knee injury hampered his time at Nice and it is why he found himself at Saint-Etienne in 2015. Difficult times followed there and Maupay opted to drop down a division by going on loan to Ligue 2 side Brest.

It was there he began to find his feet again and it is why Brentford and Brighton both came calling in 2017. Scouts from both clubs were aware this was a player who had the physicality to cut it in England, even if he had been overlooked in the past.

After a season of adaption in England, Maupay is now proving them right and fulfilling the potential he showed in his youth. The question now is, how much further can the Frenchman’s star continue to rise?