Aston Villa beat the Bees, 1-0
Ollie Watkins continued his successful run against his former club. He is yet to lose against Brentford in the Premier League and seems to pick up a goal in nearly every head-to-head game. The Bees played well throughout the game, but were unable to get a shot past backup Villa keeper Robin Olsen.
Let's check the pre-game Correlation FC predictions:
Prediction #1
Brentford will outperform Aston Villa on aerial duels.
Correct. The Bees won 20 out of the 33 aerial duels, for a win rate of 61%. That's higher than their season average of 54%.
Prediction #2
Brentford will finish the game with fewer fouls than Villa, though they will exceed their current season average of 8.9 fouls per game.
Wrong and right. The Bees committed 10 fouls to Villa's 5, so incorrect on the first part. However, the Bees did exceed their season average. Brentford defenders Kristoffer Ajer and Nathan Collins both picked up yellow cards as well, a rare occurrence for the Bees this season.
Prediction #3
Villa will make more subs than Brentford, and their subs will, on average, play more minutes than Brentford's subs.
Correct and correct. Unai Emery made a total of four subs, and those subs played an average of 25 minutes (or more if you include stoppage time). Thomas Frank made 2 subs who played an average of 9 minutes. Even if you were to exclude the last minute sub of Ji-Soo Kim, Villa subs still averaged more playing time than Brentford's.
Pre-game follow-up
In the preview, we looked at how Yoane Wissa and Ollie Watkins have had a remarkable number of similar stats this season. Let's see how they fared head to head.
Both were very involved in the game, but ultimately it was Watkins who scored the game's only goal, so he takes the edge this time around.
Trends that continued
No goals = no points (at home)
For the fourth time this season, the Bees were held goalless at home. They are yet to pick up a point when they don't score at home. They've picked up points in two out of the three away games where they've been unable to score.
Not 17:30, please
For the second time in a row, the Bees lost a 17:30 start. They previously lost 3-1 to Arsenal on New Years Day at 17:30. Two of of their next four matches are scheduled for 17:30, but both are away, so perhaps they'll have better luck then.
Mikkel Damsgaard, the tackling and passing machine
Midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard continued his impressive season on both sides of the ball, leading the Bees with 4 attempted tackles, bringing his total to 85 for the season, behind only Christian Norgaard. Damsgaard lead the team in the game and for the season in a number of passing stats.
Mark Flekken continues to pile up saves
Mark Flekken has been at or near the top of of a number of league goalkeeping stats this season, and his most recent performance against Aston Villa helps to make the case that he's one of the most reliable keepers in the league. If it wasn't for an unlucky deflection on Watkins's shot, he may have had another clean sheet today.
What was different
Collins the shot pass blocker
Nathan Collins leads the team and league in shots blocked this season, with 39 in total, adding 2 to that total against Villa. So that's largely the same. What's different is that he had more passes blocked (3) than shots. Throughout the season he has had more than double the number of shots blocked than passes blocked.
Kayode's sub streak is broken
Newcomer, Michael Kayode missed the game due to injury, so his streak of four straight games of coming off the bench as a substitute was broken. His loss was Ji-Soo Kim's gain as he played his first Premier League minutes since New Years Day.
This story was published on 09 March 2025. It was written by Dennis Flood. The image at the top of this story was generated using AI.
