Bees beat Bournemouth 2-1
Yoane Wissa picked up his third goal of the season against Bournemouth, and Christian Norgaard scored the second half winner as the Bees won a game that could have gone either way.
Let's check the pre-game Correlation FC predictions:
Prediction #1
Brentford will keep their unbeaten streak against Bournemouth and Kepa alive.
Correct. The Bees once again beat both the Cherries and Kepa.
Prediction #2
Brentford will wear their green third kit.
Wrong. The Bees stuck with their pink away kit. They've won their last 3 games in pink.
Prediction #3
There will be a penalty.
Wrong, but close. Evanilson came close to drawing a penalty against Nathan Collins, but a marginal offside helped the Bees (and hurt this prediction).
Prediction #4
There will be a lot of crosses.
Wrong. While Bournemouth did their part, firing in 24 crosses, the Bees were well below their average and ended with only 10, resulting in a slightly below average 34 for the game.
Prediction #5
Bournemouth will out-foul Brentford.
Correct. Bournemouth finished the game with 13 fouls to Brentford's 7. (Cook only had 1.)
Prediction #6
One of the teams will end the game with a possession average higher than their season average.
Correct as Bournemouth finished well above their season average with a total of 58% possession.
Trends that continued
Starting lineup consistency
Thomas Frank didn't have any new injuries to deal with in his starting lineup, and kept the same starting eleven as he had against Aston Villa. As we shared in the pre-game write up, the Bees have been at their best when there were no starting lineup changes due to injury — 9 of the 12 wins this season have come when there were no starting lineup changes forced by injury. (Matthias Jensen missed the game due to illness, but he was on the bench against Villa.)
Flekken good in blue
Mark Flekken had a strong game overall. He's now worn his blue goalkeeping kit 10 times this season, winning 7 of those games. At the other end, Kepa wore yellow. This was only the second time this season that the Bees have beaten an opposing keeper wearing yellow.
No, you take the ball first
9 of the Bees 12 wins have come when their opponent kicks off in the first half. It's a bit confusing, as the Bees have scored more goals in the first half than second half.
It's an odd day for a game
As noted in the preview, the Bees have outperformed the Cherries this season when the game is played on an odd numbered day. This surely meaningless trend did continue. The Bees still have 4 more odd day games remaining this season.
Yarmo super sub
We've mentioned Brentford's super sub race, between Yehor Yarmoliuk and Fabio Carvalho a few times this season. Carvalho's recent shoulder surgery has perhaps given an advantage to Yarmoliuk – he was sure to take advantage of it with a solid performance off the bench against Bournemouth. Kevin Schade has also been a frequent substitute. Here's a comparison of the three.
Brentford players with more than ten substitute appearances (source Correlation FC)
| Player | Substitute appearances | Points | Points per game |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fabio Carvalho | 16 | 24 | 1.50 |
| Yehor Yarmoliuk | 15 | 28 | 1.87 |
| Kevin Schade | 12 | 11 | 0.92 |
Other data stories
What difference does a colour make?
Most people who follow Brentford are familiar with the narrative from this season that they started strongly at home, but were poor on the road – and then in the second half of the season, that trend has reversed. Now that Brentford is picking up points away from home, we thought it would be interesting to see which kit colours the team has been wearing while earning points over their 4 Premier League seasons so far. While they've played most of their games and earned most of their points in red and white it's worth noting that they do occasionally wear their "home" kit away from home, and have done so for some memorable wins along the way including at Chelsea and Manchester City.
Comparison of Brentford's kit colour and league points in from 2021-22 to 2024-25 (source Correlation FC)
More points than last season
With the win against Bournemouth, Brentford has now reached 41 points in the league, ahead of last season's final total of 39. The progress is positive, but the team will need to string together some victories against tough opponents over the final stretch to meet or beat 2022-23's total of 59 points.
This story was published on 17 March 2025. It was written by Dennis Flood. The image at the top of this story was generated using AI.
