Correlation FC

Bees 4-1 win against Bournemouth

The Bees scored early and often to keep Bournemouth at bay. Kevin Schade's hat-trick gets the attention, but the Bees didn't have a weak link as they saw strong performances all around the pitch.

Trends that continued

Bees score first

Brentford scored first for the 12th time this season. They have not lost when they score first at home, picking up six wins and a draw in 7 games.

Damsgaard producing off the bench

Midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard has been a second-half substitute in 4 of the last 5 games, including the last 3 straight. In those 3 games, he has a pair of official assists and an unofficial second assist as well. While he surely wants to return to the starting lineup, he's still bringing creativity when he's coming off the bench.

Other data stories

Natural hat trick

Schade's hat trick is known as a "natural" hat trick as he scored with his left foot, right foot and head. Beyond scoring, he was effective in several areas and led or co-led the game in a number of key offensive stats:

Kevin Schade against Bournemouth (source: FBref)

Thiago's role

Igor Thiago had a huge first half against Bournemouth. He assisted on Schade's opening goal and was hugely responsible for the second goal of the game which was officially recorded as an own goal. But beyond that, he also completed 19 passes and had 39 successful touches all around the pitch. In the second half, he was influential in picking up a loose ball that led to the third Bees goal. He was also in position to score when Keane Lewis-Potter headed the ball wide and was right beside Schade when he scored his hat trick goal. In a parallel universe, Thiago could have had a hat trick of his own.

Keith Andrews made a comment after the game that Thiago had been playing through pain recently, which may explain his recent goal-scoring drought.

Comparing the Bournemouth game to last week at Wolves, you can see that Thiago was much more involved in the game this week. He had more touches in the first half than he did in the whole game against Bournemouth.

Igor Thiago's touch maps against Wolves and Bournemouth (source: Correlation FC)

Brentford goal contributions