Brentford favourite Yoann Barbet has explained how he ended up signing for Queens Park Rangers, despite being convinced Bees fans would be furious.
Girondins 4 Ever cover comments from the 31-year-old today made on Cédric Yambéré’s Twitch channel in which he details what happened and how he was convinced on a move even he didn’t really think could happen.
The centre-back played for Brentford for four years, joining them in a €700,000 deal in 2015 from Chamois Nort and going on to make 118 appearances for the club in all competitions.
He eventually left on a free transfer in 2019 and then ended up at bitter rivals QPR, where he went on to make 121 appearances in all competitions over three years before returning to Bordeaux in 2022.
While plenty of players have played for both Brentford and QPR are not uncommon, it is considered something of a taboo given the rivalry between the two London clubs.
Barbet admits he was very much aware of that when QPR came calling for him at the end of his time with Brentford and wasn’t convinced of the move himself, until a manager’s persistence changed things.
“I remember, there was a Brentford fan who said to me ‘good luck for the rest of your career, sign wherever you want, but not Queens Park Rangers’. At that time, I told her that it was impossible.
“I had a physio from Brentford who called me and told me that a coach wanted to call me, a coach who was going to take a club in the Championship. I looked, there were four or five clubs, clubs that I didn’t necessarily want to go to, and I saw Queens Park who no longer had a coach…
“I told myself that every time, it was the coach who was at Brentford before I signed. The coach calls me, it’s the former Brentford coach, he tells me that he’s been following me for four years, that he loves my profile, and that the next day he’s going to sign for Queens Park Rangers, that he wants me as number one in his defense.
“I hang up and tell my wife that it’s impossible for me to go there, because I’m going to get ‘killed’ by the supporters. But even I couldn’t see myself going there. I call my agent, and I tell him that the coach really wants to travel to meet me. He tells me that since he has been an agent, it has never happened to see a coach who travels to see a player, so he tells me to listen to him.
