Brentford have signed New Zealand international Winston Reid on loan from West Ham United for the rest of the 2020/21 season. The 32-year-old defender completed the Transfer Deadline Day switch this morning and trained with The Bees today, Monday 1 February. He will remain in West London until the end of the current campaign.

Winston has been with West Ham for more than a decade having made his first steps in professional football at FC Midtjylland, the Danish side where Brentford FC Owner Matthew Benham has the majority shareholding. He has played more than 200 games for West Ham since moving to the Premier League from FCM, as they are known, in August 2010. The majority of those games for The Hammers have come in the top flight of English football.

Thomas Frank, Brentford FC Head Coach, said: “We are very happy to welcome Winston to Brentford. We are very pleased that he wanted to come to help the team for the rest of the season. With his quality, personality and experience, we know he will do a great job for us over the next few months.

“We felt we needed to bring an extra centre back in to the Club. Pontus Jansson will be out for at least six weeks and Luke Racic came back from his loan at Northampton Town with a back injury, so they are not available. Our medical staff are also helping Charlie Goode with his ongoing medical issue, so he has not been able to be part of our squad. We were a little short at centre back and Winston will be able to challenge for those places.”

Winston was born in New Zealand, but most of his football education was at FCM, coming through the youth ranks at the Danish side. He played for FCM in the UEFA Cup and represented Denmark at youth international level, playing for the Under-19, Under-20 and Under-21 sides. He chose to represent New Zealand at full international level and was part of the All Whites squad at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa where he helped his nation remain unbeaten and scored in their draw with Slovakia. Winston has 25 caps for his country so far.