Brentford sporting director Phil Giles has said that the club could be powerless to stop Aston Villa and new manager Dean Smith from poaching some of their star players.

The Bees this week reluctantly allowed their manager to make the move to Villa Park, and since then, there has been increasing murmurs that Smith might indeed come back to the club in January and look to poach some of the club's top talent.

And Giles, as reported by Football London, has said there could be little the Bees will be able to do if big money bids come in.

"If they want to offer massive money for one of our players then it might be in our interest to sell the player, I don't know. There is no restriction to stop him going after our players."Giles said.

However, it was not a definitive we will sell notion from Giles, who insisted that his club will be 'very reluctant' to lose anybody if they are in with a chance of promotion.

"If we're in the top six or the top two in January we won't be selling players. It comes down to how likely we are to be promoted at any point. If we've got a high likelihood of being promoted we'll be very, very reluctant to sell players." added Giles.

Brentford have made a name for themselves in the past few seasons for selling a host of players for big money, and the likes of Neal Maupay and Chris Mepham are next on the list of potential targets for other clubs.

Villa and Bees fans, what do you make of this? Do you think Villa will raid in January? Let us know in the comments!