Brentford at Bournemouth, preview

Recent history

Brentford won the most recent meeting back in November with two goals from Yoane Wissa. The Bees have never lost to Bournemouth in the Premier League. In fact, in the Thomas Frank era, the only time the Bees have lost to Bournemouth was in the first leg of the Championship playoff in the Bees promotion year.

Pre-game correlation

The Bees have also had a successful run against Bournemouth keeper, Kepa Arrizabalaga, on loan this season from Chelsea. The Bees have never lost to Kepa in the Premier League, beating him when he was in goal for both Bournemouth and Chelsea.

Correlation FC pre-game predictions

Prediction #1

Brentford will keep their unbeaten streak against Bournemouth and Kepa alive.

Prediction #2

Brentford will wear their green third kit. Why? The Bees are undefeated on the south coast in green this season. In fact their only points in green have come on the south coast, picking up a draw against Brighton and a win against Southampton.

Prediction #3

There will be a penalty. Bournemouth and Brentford are the top two teams in the league at drawing penalties (10 for Bournemouth, 7 for the Bees). Evanilson has drawn an amazing 5 penalties, tops in the league. Nathan Collins is third in the league with 2. At the other end of the pitch, Bournemouth has conceded 4 penalties (2 by Kepa) while the Bees have only conceded 1.

Prediction #4

There will be a lot of crosses. Bournemouth is second in the league with an average of 21 crosses per game. Brentford is sixth with an average of 18 per game. Brentford is also second in the league in crosses conceded at 22 per game. The league average is 35 crosses per game, so this game must exceed that league average.

Prediction #5

Bournemouth will out-foul Brentford. Bournemouth leads the league in fouls committed, while Brentford is 19th. Bournemouth captain Lewis Cook currently sits ninth in the league with 43 fouls.

Prediction #6

One of the teams will end the game with a possession average higher than their season average. This is a given as both are below 50% for the season. Consider this your Correlation FC Guarantee of the Week™.

Other data stories

Both teams have a strong top 4 attacking group

Both the Bees and the Cherries have strong front fours that have put lots of goals and assists on the board.

Brentford and Bournemouth top offensive contributors (source FBref.com)

Bournemouth			Brentford
Player	Goals	Assists	Player	Goals	Assists
Justin Kluivert	12	6	Bryan Mbeumo	15	4
Antoine Semenyo	7	4	Yoane Wissa	13	2
Dango Ouattara	7	4	Kevin Schade	7	2
Evanilson	6	0	Mikkel Damsgaard	2	10
Totals	32	14	Totals	37	18

More injuries, more points

In 2023-24, the Bees suffered badly from several long term injuries to key players. Unfortunately 2024-25 hasn't been much better with five players (Igor Thiago, Rico Henry, Aaron Hickey, Josh Dasilva and Gustavo Nunes) missing all or virtually all of the season so far. After 28 games, the Bees players have missed more games due to injury than in 2023-24 (193 vs 163). However, fortunately for the Bees, they have been able to perform at a higher level this season, scoring more points than they had at this point last season. The Bees are expected to be missing at least 7 players due to injury for the Bournemouth game.

Mixed graph showing points and cumulative injury comparison

See an updated version of this chart that shows the data over the full season.

So why the improvement? It's difficult to say for sure, but perhaps part of the reason is that a significant portion of the games missed this year have been by players that were missing right from the start of the season. The five players mentioned above account for 135 games missed, or 70% of the total. It's almost like they haven't been part of the team this season. With their injuries removed, the Bees have still had 9 players miss at least a game, but most of the absences have been for a comparatively short amount of time.

Last season, multiple players were injured in the first weeks of the season (Shandon Baptiste, Mikkel Damsgaard, Josh Dasilva, Rico Henry and shortly after, Aaron Hickey), disrupting team plans and forcing players like Keane Lewis-Potter, Saman Ghoddos and Vitaly Janelt to play out of position.

With any luck, Thomas Frank will have a few players return from long-term injuries before the end of the season, giving him a good squad selection headache.

No new injuries this week (that we're aware of)

In Thomas Frank's pre-game press conference, he didn't announce any new injuries, and suggested that Sepp van den Berg may return. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Bees have been at their best this season when they weren't forced to make any changes to the starting lineup due to new injuries.

Brentford results based on changes to the starting lineup due to injuries (source Correlation FC)

Number of starting lineup changes due to injury	Games	Wins	Draws	Losses	Points	Points per game
0	16	8	3	5	29	1.81
1	8	3	2	3	11	1.38
2	4	0	0	4	0	0.00

While they play best when they're not forced to make starting lineup changes due to injury, they actually have the best record when they've made 1 change to the starting lineup. These changes are more likely to be tactical or rewarding a player who has been training well recently.

Brentford results based on changes to the starting lineup (source Correlation FC)

Number of starting lineup changes	Games	Wins	Draws	Losses	Points	Points per game
0	4	1	1	2	4	1.00
1	13	6	4	3	22	1.69
2	10	4	0	6	12	1.20
3	0	0	0	0	0	0.00
4	1	0	0	1	0	0.00

It's an odd day for a game

This match is scheduled to take place on the 15th of March. 15 is of course an odd number. So far this season the Bees have won 43% of their odd day games, while the Cherries have won 33%. Edge Brentford.

This story was originally published on 13 March 2025 and was last updated on 27 June 2025 at 21:35. It was written by Dennis Flood. The image at the top of this story was generated using AI.