Correlation FC

Brentford defeat Everton 4-2

The Bees put in another solid 90-minute performance, led by a trio of goals from Igor Thiago, to defeat Everton 4-2.

Familiar themes

Another milestone

Another game, another milestone, this time for Jordan Henderson, as he made his 450th Premier League appearance. While he's played in the league with three separate teams (Sunderland, Liverpool, Brentford), remarkably, all are known for their red and white kit. If he's able to stay healthy, he should be able to hit the 500 milestone late next season.

Another hat trick

For the second time in three games, a Brentford player has scored a Premier League hat trick. This is only the fifth hat trick in the Bees' short Premier League history.

Brentford Premier League hat tricks (source: statmuse)

Damsgaard back in full force

After missing the Spurs game as an unused substitute, and being challenged by Keith Andrews to raise his intensity levels, Mikkel Damsgaard started and played the full 90 minutes against Everton. He appeared to be back in his 2024-25 form. Let's look at some of his numbers.

Key statistics for Mikkel Damsgaard (source: FBref)

Midfield miles

We've already noted Damsgaard's impressive performance, but it's worth noting that the entire midfield lineup of Damsgaard, Vitaly Janelt, Yehor Yarmoliuk, Mathias Jensen and sub Henderson were all outstanding. The group truly controlled the game and individually or as a group led virtually every statistic other than goal scoring and goalkeeping. The group outran virtually everybody else on the pitch.

Distance covered by Brentford midfielders (source BBC)

Who have the Bees been taking points from?

Based on Opta's Power Rankings, the Bees have been the higher-ranked team in each of their last six matches. The Bees have taken points in five of those matches, only losing away to Tottenham.

We thought it might be interesting to look at Brentford's first 20 games to see how they've done against different types of opponents.

Understanding how opponent strength impacts results (source: Correlation FC)

This visualisation shows that the Bees have won 60% of their matches against weaker opponents. Even more impressive, they've won 50% against stronger opponents. Perhaps most surprising is that they've lost 56% (5 of 9) of their matches against teams with a roughly equal ranking.

1 to 5

Here at Correlation FC, we like numbers. That much should be obvious. Let's look at some of the basic numbers from the last game.

1. 1st time Bees have worn their home kit away from home in the league this season. 1 away win in 2026 (so far).
2. 2 assists for Janelt (and Jack Grealish). 2 goal contributions for Collins. Only 2nd win this season when giving up 2 or more goals.
3. 3 goals for Thiago.
4. 4 goals scored (again) by Brentford.
5. 5 games in a row without a loss for Brentford.

Scored first again

The Bees have now scored first in 13 of their 20 games. They've managed to pick up points in 10 of those (77%) and won 8 of the games (62%).