Newcastle United and Leicester City are preparing to do battle for Brentford attacker Said Benrahma.

The Algerian trickster is in scintillating form for the Bees, most recently netting a hat-trick in the 5-1 demolition of Hull City on Saturday.

It was reported that Aston Villa saw a £20million bid turned down last summer for the player dubbed the ‘Championship’s best,’ but there were no bids last month.

It’s felt that the only way Brentford will be able to keep hold of their prized asset is to gain promotion, and currently sitting fifth, five points behind Leeds in second place, a play-off spot looks like the very least they’ll achieve.

If they do fail to gain promotion, it’s said Leicester and Newcastle will both test Brentford’s resolve with bids around £15million, although the club value him closer to the £30million mark.

Any sale would continue the trend at Brentford of making huge profits on their investments having bought Benrahma for just £1.5million from Nice in 2018.  

During his two years in England, the 24-year-old scored 10 goals in his debut season and is on course to beating that this time out, currently sitting on eight.

Benrahma makes up one third of Brentford’s now in-famous BMW, alongside Bryan Mbeumo and Ollie Watkins, all of whom have impressed this season.

Watkins was also a player linked with moves away in the last two transfer windows but with no bids received in January, he’ll be a Brentford player until the summer at least.