📏 Form Guide

Brentford

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Brentford will be hoping for a better result following a 0-1 FA Cup defeat last time out to Plymouth Argyle.

In that game, Brentford managed 71% possession and 9 shots on goal with 2 on target. Plymouth Argyle had 5 shots at goal with 2 on target. Morgan Whittaker (82') was the scorer for Plymouth Argyle.

In their past 6 games, Thomas Frank's Brentford have hit the target a total of 7 times, with that being an average number of goals per match equal to 1.17.

Their past results show that Brentford:

• have left without a victory over Manchester City in their last 3 league matches.
• are without a win at home for the past 2 league games.

Manchester City

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Manchester City head into the encounter following on from a 8-0 FA Cup win with the eclipse of Salford City in their last match.

In that match, Manchester City had 68% possession and 20 attempts at goal with 10 on target. For Manchester City, goals were scored by Jérémy Doku (8', 69'), Divin Mubama (20'), Nico O'Reilly (43'), Jack Grealish (49') and James McAtee (62', 72', 81'). On the other side, Salford City had 10 attempts on goal with 2 on target.

The numbers tell their own story, and Manchester City have been scored against in 5 of their last 6 matches, conceding 8 goals overall. In defence, Manchester City have been far from perfect.

🤜🤛 Head to head

Inspecting their prior head-to-head meetings stretching back to 09/02/2022 tells us that Brentford have won 2 of them and Manchester City 4, with the number of drawn matches being 0.

A combined sum of 14 goals were yielded between them in this period, with 5 of them from The Bees and 9 coming from The Citizens. The average goals per game has been 2.33.

The previous league meeting featuring the two was Premier League match day 4 on 14/09/2024 when it ended Manchester City 2-1 Brentford.

In that game, Manchester City managed 54% possession and 18 attempts on goal with 7 of them on target. Their only player on the scoresheet was Erling Haaland (19', 32').

On the other side, Brentford got 8 attempts on goal with 5 of them on target. Yoane Wissa (1') scored.

The referee was Darren Bond.

📰 Team News: Brentford

In our view, The Bees may well line up in a 3-5-2 system this time featuring Mark Flekken, Sepp van den Berg, Nathan Collins, Ben Mee, Mads Roerslev, Mikkel Damsgaard, Christian Noergaard, Vitaly Janelt, Keane Lewis-Potter, Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo.

🗞️ Team News: Manchester City

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has not got a full squad to pick from. John Stones (Foot injury), Claudio Echeverri (Muscle injury), Rúben Dias (unknown injury), Oscar Bobb (Broken leg) and Rodri (Cruciate ligament tear) are not able to play.

It’s our belief that The Citizens seem most likely to utilise a 4-3-3 lineup, going with Stefan Ortega, Rico Lewis, Manuel Akanji, Nathan Ake, Josko Gvardiol, Kevin De Bruyne, Mateo Kovacic, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Erling Haaland and Savinho.

✨ Prediction

In this game, Brentford have the ability to breach the defence of this Manchester City side, although one goal probably won’t be good enough.

We therefore reckon that it will be a close game with a 1-2 winning score for Manchester City by the conclusion of the game. There looks to be little in this one.

Our expert partners are tipping under 3.5 goals for this match. Check out their VIP predictions here.

Victor Martins, 19:03 14/01/2025