Brentford at Ipswich Town, preview
After back-to-back promotions, Ipswich Town has been unable to earn enough points to remain in the Premier League for next season. Brentford on the other hand have been playing well recently, undefeated in 5 and only 2 defeats in their last 11 league games.
Recent history
The two clubs don't have a lot of history together, but have crossed paths a few times. Prior to this season, the teams had played each other on 10 separate occasions in the Championship. Brentford won 4 of those, Ipswich Town 2, with 4 draws. In October 2024, Brentford beat the Tractor Boys 4-3 in a back-and-forth game, with Bryan Mbeumo's late goal making the difference.
Pre-game correlation
Brentford have worn their red and white striped home kit away from home this season on three occasions, always against teams wearing their blue home kit.
Prediction #1
Brentford will wear their home kit away from home against Ipswich Town.
Prediction #2
When the two teams played in October, 7 goals were scored, and both teams exceeded their average xG for the season. We'll see the same again in this game. That means that Ipswich Town will have an xG of greater than 0.89 and Brentford will have an xG of greater than 1.53.
Prediction #3
This is more of an implied prediction than an actual prediction, but ... when the Bees have had an xG greater than 1.53, they have a record of 9 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. So, if Brentford ends the game with an xG greater than 1.53, they will also end the game with 3 points.
Other data stories
No new injuries
In his pre-game press conference, Thomas Frank indicated that the Bees have no new injuries this week. That suggests that the Bees will continue to be without 4 players due to injury or fitness (Fabio Carvalho, Josh Dasilva, Aaron Hickey and Vitaly Janelt). 4 is the lowest number that the Bees have had this season. They've played with 4 players out on 3 separate occasions, and have not yet lost when that was the case. This will be the 19th game where the lineup hasn't needed to change due to new injuries. The Bees have picked up 32 points in those games, or an average of 1.68 points per game. Remarkably, they've done slightly better when they've lost a player due to injury, finishing with an average of 1.70 points per game then.
Flekken in blue
When Mark Flekken has worn blue this season, the Bees have picked up 25 of a possible 39 points, or 1.92 points per game. That's better than in yellow (1.35 points per game) or green (0.80). We normally wouldn't predict that he would wear blue against an opponent wearing blue, but he did last week when Manchester United wore their away navy blue. Only time will tell which colour he'll choose this week.
This story was published on 09 May 2025. It was written by Dennis Flood. The image at the top of this story was generated using AI.
