2024-25 mid-season assessment

Record: 7 wins, 3 draws, 9 losses
The early narrative was to be all about how the Bees would get along in the post-Ivan Toney world. It didn't take long for the narrative to become more focused on the goal-scoring duo of Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, the emergence of Mikkel Damsgaard as a creative force, a fantastic home record and the Bees amazing streak of scoring in the first minute(s) of consecutive games. But you can read about that stuff anywhere. What other things have we seen so far?
Brentford's kit
The team made a big splash with the joint introduction of the away kit (pink) and third kit (green). While it seems that both have sold well, the Bees are yet to hit their stride in anything other than red, white and black.
Brentford kit and results comparison (source Correlation FC)
Kit | Games | Points | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Home | 10 | 22 | 1 of only 2 points away from home came in their home kit |
Away (pink) | 3 | 0 | Is pink the new blue? |
Third (green) | 4 | 1 | - |
Perfect subs
Want to win? Use Sepp van den Berg, Vitaly Janelt or Keane Lewis-Potter as a sub. The team hasn't dropped a point in a game where one of those three have subbed on.
Injuries? More like out-juries
It's been a tough season (again) for injuries. Gustavo Nunes, Josh Dasilva, Aaron Hickey and Rico Henry have all missed every game so far. Big signing Igor Thiago missed the first eleven games, before making a great impression in the four games he played in, with the Bees picking up 7 out of a possible 12 points. Unfortunately he's out again indefinitely. At the half way point, Bees players have missed a combined 132 games due to injury – that equates to 7 players missing half a season each.
While the injuries have been tough on the Bees, they've been fortunate to have a healthy core who have been able to play in every game so far – KLP, Mbeumo, Kevin Schade, Damsgaard, Nathan Collins and Mark Flekken have played in every game so far. Collins is the only Bee to have played every Premier League minute this season.
Play him for 90 minutes every time
The Bees are averaging more than two points per game when either Wissa or Mathias Jensen start and finish a game. Unfortunately that's only happened six times for Wissa and twice for Jensen. The Bees have been able to depend on Collins, Flekken and Ethan Pinnock as well, picking up virtually all of their points when that trio start and finish. The Bees have only picked up a single point since Pinnock's recent injury.
It's all Bees in first half injury time
Once the clock hits 45+, it's all Bees. The team has scored four goals so far in first half injury time, without giving up a single goal. Brentford has won three of the four games when they've scored in the first half (at home to Wolves, Ipswich and Leicester City). Unfortunately they haven't been quite as strong in second half injury time, only scoring one goal while giving up four, none more painful than the two injury time goals by Fulham.
This story was published on 02 January 2025. This story and the image at the top of the article were both created with care, by humans, not AI.