Brentford return to Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday (3pm kick-off), welcoming Ipswich Town to west London for Gameweek 9 of the Premier League.
The Bees are unbeaten on home soil this season – beating Crystal Palace, Southampton and Wolves – while Kieran McKenna's Tractor Boys have collected four points so far and lost 2-0 to Everton last time out.
Analysis, team news, match officials and more. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the meeting in west London.
Pre-match Analysis
Richard Cole, Playmaker Stats: Brentford must be wary of counter-attacking Ipswich
Brentford have the perfect opportunity to bounce back from disappointment at Old Trafford as the Bees host Ipswich Town.
Saturday's game will be the first-ever top-flight meeting between the two sides with the Tractor Boys also not having won away to Brentford since a 4-2 victory in the Championship back in December 2014.
Now just under 10 years later Brentford will feel confident it won't happen again – especially considering the difference in starts between the two teams.
Ipswich are one of four teams yet to record a league victory after eight games played but are above the relegation zone courtesy of the four draws that Kieran McKenna's team have picked up so far.
Ipswich have scored just six goals in the league with only 18th-place Crystal Palace scoring fewer (5).
However, half of those goals have come from the counter attack, which is something Brentford will have to be wary of at the weekend. Just Tottenham Hotspur have scored more goals on the counter (7) than Ipswich in the Premier League so far this season.
The danger from Ipswich is also likely to come down the left through Leif Davis deliveries. Only seven players have managed to make more accurate crosses than Davis (11) – although one of those is Bryan Mbeumo (13).
Indeed, Davis also ranks in the top eight for key passes this season. The 24-year-old has chipped in 20 for his team (the same number as Bernardo Silva and Jarrod Bowen) with just five players having made more.
Another threat is striker Liam Delap. The son of former Stoke City man Rory, the 21-year-old has scored four of Ipswich's six goals this campaign, including three in his last three games.
A small group of just nine players have bagged more than Delap this season – including the aforementioned Mbeumo, whose Premier League tally of six is the same as Ipswich's total.
The former Manchester City academy product also ranks sixth in the charts for outperforming his xG (a positive difference of +1.63 xG) so his finishing prowess cannot be underestimated by the Brentford defence.
As well as those key Ipswich players, Brentford will need to continue their stern defending of set-pieces.
A significant chunk of Ipswich’s attempts this season (35 from 75 efforts) have come from set-pieces meaning that Nathan Collins, Ethan Pinnock and co will need to be at their best once again.
While hosting a team that is yet to win this season seems like a great way for Brentford to continue their rise up the table, the Blues are still very capable of causing problems in their first visit to Gtech Community Stadium.
Scout Report
Dan Long, Sky Sports: Ipswich searching for first win since remarkable Premier League return
Ipswich’s rise over the last few years has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Looking back now, it seems as though relegation from the Championship - after 17 consecutive seasons of second-tier football - in 2019 was a necessary evil to make way for what was to come.
Between dropping out of the Premier League in 2001/02 and dropping to League One in 2018/19, the Tractor Boys reached the play-offs three times – and all three chances ended at the semi-final stage.
For the most part, they endured unhappy, unsuccessful years that simply demanded change.
At first, neither Paul Lambert nor his successor Paul Cook could lift Ipswich higher than mid-table in League One.
But everything changed when Kieran McKenna arrived to replace the latter in December 2021.
Out of the spotlight, the young manager’s ideas and energy played a major role in the club achieving automatic promotion from League One in 2023 and the Championship earlier this year.
It is hard to find the words to describe the way his side accomplished the latter – and almost pipped Leicester City to the title, most notably without making sweeping changes to the squad – to return to the top flight after 22 years away.
It was a wild ride; Ipswich picked up 96 points and became only the sixth club since the Championship rebrand in 2004/05 to score 90 goals or more.
McKenna has kept faith with a lot of the players who were integral to the back-to-back promotions. Promotion to the best league in the world has required signings, though, and – according to a Sky Sports report - the club spent £124 million to bolster their ranks in the summer. With just £1 million recouped, they had the second-highest net spend in the Premier League, after Brighton.
As cliché as it sounds, the most important move Ipswich made ahead of the new season was tying McKenna down to a new deal until 2028. There was interest from several clubs – and that will no doubt come again. But, for now, he is heavily invested in this project.
He, the players and the fans have been used to winning on a regular basis over the last couple of years, so plenty of patience is going to have to be exercised judging by the way the season has started.
First and foremost, it hasn’t been disastrous by any means. Facing Liverpool and Man City in the opening two games was, naturally, tough and four straight draws – against Fulham, Southampton, Brighton and Aston Villa – is not to be sniffed at.
They have taken the lead in three games, but the hunt for that elusive first Premier League win since 24 April 2002 (1-0 v Middlesbrough) goes on.
As second-favourites for relegation at the time of writing, Ipswich will be hoping the wait does not go on too much longer.
In the Dugout
Kieran McKenna
London-born Kieran McKenna was raised in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, but returned to the English capital in 2002, when he joined Tottenham as a 16-year-old.
A midfielder by trade, he played for Northern Ireland at U19 and U21 level, but a persistent hip injury sadly prevented him from ever making a senior appearance - at either club or international level - and led to his premature retirement aged 22 in 2009.
Having studied for his A-Levels while at Spurs, McKenna applied to study sport and exercise science at Loughborough University and graduated in 2012.
Shortly afterwards, he returned to Tottenham as head of academy performance analysis, before later taking charge of the club’s U18s.
In the summer of 2016, he joined Manchester United in the same capacity and, in the 2017/18 campaign, won the Premier League Northern Division title, before being picked – alongside Michael Carrick - to work as assistant to José Mourinho in the first team.
After the Portuguese left Old Trafford, he worked under Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Ralf Rangnick.
McKenna was just 35 when he was appointed Ipswich boss in December 2021 and, almost three years later, is coming up to 150 games in charge.
The Gameplan
With Stuart Watson, chief football writer for the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star
Stuart Watson, chief football writer for the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star, explains how Kieran McKenna is likely to set up his Ipswich side at Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday:
“It has been a flexible 4-2-3-1 the whole way through under McKenna.
“Leif Davis the left-back provided a ridiculous number of assists in League One and the Championship and he is ultra-fit, so just gets up and down the entire left side, so whoever plays on the left wing tends to tuck in.
“They have two no.10s and whoever plays on the right wing plays very high and is given the freedom to almost play as an extra striker at times.
“So, it is a 4-2-3-1 base shape, but with plenty of flexibility in there. They have got some injury issues in defence at the moment and the two defenders who started the season in the best form are out; one is Axel Tuanzebe who suffered a freak injury where he nearly lost his thumb while doing washing up.
“Then, at the weekend, there was a bit of surprise when Jacob Greaves was not on the teamsheet. He was in the Championship Team of the Year for Hull last season and had taken to the Premier League really well, so losing him is a blow.
“Finding the right replacements and balance is going to be an issue going into this game.”
Last Premier League starting XI v Everton (4-2-3-1): Muric; Burgess, O’Shea, Woolfenden, Davis; Morsy, Phillips; Burns, Hutchinson, Clarke; Delap
Read our full interview with Stuart Watson here
Match Officials
Smith returns to the Gtech for second time this season
Referee: Lewis Smith
Assistants: Scott Ledger and Matthew Wilkes
Fourth official: Robert Jones
VAR: Peter Bankes
30-year-old referee Lewis Smith is the man in the middle on Saturday, returning to Gtech Community Stadium for a second time this season having officiated the Bees’ Carabao Cup tie against Leyton Orient last month.
He made his Premier League debut earlier this year, becoming the youngest person to take charge of a match in the competition last term.
Smith has had the whistle for 12 Premier League and EFL games this season, issuing 43 yellow cards and two reds.
He also took charge of some matches in Japan in March, in an exchange programme with the J-League.
Last Meeting
Brentford 2 Ipswich Town 0 (Sky Bet Championship, 10 April 2019)
Neal Maupay and Ollie Watkins scored within the space of eight first-half minutes as Brentford ended a run of five matches without a win.
Collin Quaner should have put Ipswich ahead moments before Maupay's opener but hit the base of the post as he tried to lift the ball over Luke Daniels.