Brentford at Nottingham Forest, preview
Nottingham Forest are having a dream season and a win on Thursday will put them back in third place in the Premier League. The battle for Champions League positions is likely to go down to the final day of the season, but Forest won't want to drop any points against the Bees. Brentford are on a 3 game unbeaten streak and still have an outside chance of European qualification themselves. It should be a good game.
Recent history
Forest gave the Bees a rather poor Christmas gift this season, beating them 2-0 just a few days before Christmas. The lost was the Bees first home loss of the season, and was the first of 8 straight winless league games at the Gtech. The win was Forest's first against the Bees in the Premier League.
Pre-game correlation
Forest seems to be happiest when they don't have a lot of possession and are able to use their speed to counter attack. They lost 5-0 away at Bournemouth when they had 50% possession. They won the next game at home to Brighton 7-0 with only 38% possession. They have averaged 46% possession in their last 5 Premier League losses, while they have averaged 35% possession in their last 5 Premier League wins.
Prediction #1
Brentford will earn at least a point if they can give Forest at least 45% possession.
Prediction #2
Mathias Jensen will, like in the Bees previous game, come off the bench and gain an assist for the Bees. In his career, he has 4 assists against Nottingham Forest.
Other data stories
GKs leading the way
Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels has had a strong season, leading the Premier League with 13 clean sheets. Looking at the numbers, Sels and his Brentford counterpart Mark Flekken help to demonstrate ways that the teams play in both similar and different ways.
Brentford likes to play out from the back, with Flekken lead the league in the number of passes, while Selz and Forest are dead last in GK passes. However, both keepers like to launch the ball. Selz is at the top of the league for number of launches and average pass length with Flekken not far behind.
Both teams give up a lot of crosses. Forest has seen more crosses come into their box than any other team, while Brentford isn't far behind in 5th. Despite the many opportunities, Selz has the lowest percentage of crosses stopped in the league, suggesting he's content to stay on the line and let his defenders take care of the ball.
Different approach to shooting
With the ball, the two teams have different approaches to shooting the ball. Forest ranks 19th in the league for average shot distance, meaning they tend to take a lot of shots from far out. Brentford on the other hand has the shortest average shot distance. While those approaches differ, both teams have significantly outperformed their xG this season. Forest leads the Premier League at 12.5 more goals than their xG suggests, while Brentford sit 4th at +6.3 goals.
On the other side of the ball, both teams excel at keeping shots away from their keepers with the teams sitting 1st and 2nd for opponent shots on target percentage.
This story was published on 30 April 2025. It was written by Dennis Flood. The image at the top of this story was generated using AI.
