Venue: City Ground
Kick-off: 3PM
In Thursday afternoon's Premier League match at the City Ground, both Brentford and Nottingham Forest will be looking to get back on the winning track.
Last time out, Steve Cooper's team lost to Arsenal 5-0, while the visitors came back from losing to Aston Villa 4-0 to draw 1-1 with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Nottingham Forest appeared to be well-positioned for a trip to the Emirates after securing a memorable victory over Liverpool with a clean sheet in tow. This was especially true considering that Arsenal had recently struggled to establish their superiority and were coming off a loss to PSV Eindhoven.
However, the league leaders proved to be a class above Nottingham Forest on the day, as Cooper’s side succumbed to a Reiss Nelson brace alongside strikes from Gabriel Martinelli, Thomas Partey and Martin Odegaard in a 5-0 Emirates mauling.
The Tricky Trees had started to demonstrate a more resilient defensive streak in recent weeks, but that counted for nought at the home of the league leaders, and they remain at the bottom of the division after 12 matches, picking up a mere nine points so far.
Cooper’s side is the only team in the Premier League yet to hit double figures in points this season, and they unsurprisingly possess the worst goal difference of -20 – to date, only one club from six has had as bad a goal difference as that after 13 games have avoided relegation.
The Tricky Trees should take some encouragement from the fact that seven of their nine points this season have been won at the City Ground, where they have avoided defeat in each of their last two games, and Brentford will have to cope without their star striker this weekend.
Forget the new manager bounce, the new interim manager bounce was in full swing when Brentford visited an Aston Villa side fresh from giving Steven Gerrard the boot, as Aaron Danks took charge for the first of his only two games before stepping aside for Unai Emery.
Thomas Frank’s side sought to recover from that 4-0 drubbing when they hosted a profligate Wolverhampton Wanderers side, and it was a game of two spectacular strikes last weekend, as Ben Mee’s acrobatic effort was cancelled out by a clinical Ruben Neves finish.
Brentford established themselves as a solid Premier League outfit in their debut season, and despite winning just one of their last seven games during a sticky spell of form, the Bees are still sitting pretty in 11th in the rankings, with four points separating them from both the top seven and relegation zone.
The Bees now travel north aiming to snap a three-game winless run in the top flight, but Ivan Toney’s suspension will not aid them in that regard, and the visitors are one of six sides yet to win away from home in the Premier League this term – losing each of their last two.
Brentford claimed a 3-1 success at the City Ground in December 2020 en route to the Premier League, but Forest held the Bees to a 1-1 draw just a few months later, and rediscovering a winning habit at home would not go amiss for the basement side this weekend.
Nottingham Forest possible XI: Henderson, Aurier, Cook, McKenna, Williams, Yates, Mangala, Freuler, Johnson, Awoniyi, Gibbs-White.
Brentford possible XI: Raya, Ajer, Jansson, Pinnock, Rasmussen, Jensen, Janelt, Dasilva, Henry, Mbeumo, Wissa.