Brentford return to Gtech Community Stadium on Friday (7.45pm kick-off) for their final pre-season fixture of the summer, as Bundesliga side Wolfsburg head to west London.

Ralph Hasenhüttl is the new head coach of the German outfit, who will serve as a tough test for the Bees, with the new Premier League campaign just a week away.

Kids go free on Friday with a paying adult thanks to Gtech; tickets can be purchased here.

Pre-match Analysis

Richard Cole, Playmaker Stats: Similarities can be drawn between Wolfsburg and Brentford

Former Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhüttl will bring his Wolfsburg team to the Gtech Community Stadium in Brentford's final pre-season friendly before the 2024/25 season begins.

Hasenhüttl took over the Bundesliga side towards the end of the 2023/24 season as the club drifted down the table under Niko Kovač.

Before the Austrian took over in March, the club had gone 11 games without a win, before a a 2-1 victory over Werder Bremen and the new head coach winning 50 per cent of his eight games helped steady the ship.

Wolfsburg ended the campaign with 17 league defeats (the same as relegated FC Köln), with only Union Berlin (19) and bottom-of-the-table Darmstadt (23) suffering more.

Looking at Hasenhüttl's record against Brentford, with the manager overseeing three Saints games against the Bees during his spell in England, it's mixed.

The first of those was a 2-0 away win to Brentford in the Carabao Cup back when Thomas Frank's side were still in the Championship, with Christian Nørgaard and Josh Dasilva both getting on the scoresheet.

Hasenhüttl's Southampton got revenge in the first 2021/22 Premier League fixture - a 4-1 win at St Mary's - but that was matched in May as Brentford sank the Saints 3-0 at home.

Wolfsburg's squad remains mostly the same as last season, save from a change in goal after the departure of Koen Casteels.

There is also the interesting arrival of Algerian forward Mohamed Amoura from Union SG. The 23-year-old scored 21 goals and assisted seven more in 45 games in Belgium last season. It will be interesting to see how he adapts to the Bundesliga.

Hasenhüttl would have been hoping Amoura could recreate that goalscoring form from the off, considering Wolfsburg scored just 41 goals in 34 Bundesliga games with just four sides netting fewer, but the forward has picked up an injury ahead of the new season.

Amoura was the joint-top scorer in the Belgian top flight, alongside Brentford striker Igor Thiago (then at Club Brugge), but the forward has suffered a similar fate to the Bees man, with Wolfsburg confirming he has also suffered a medial ligament injury.

And, much like their German opposition on Friday, Brentford's pre-season has thrown some mixed results (with fitness always the priority) and you would expect this one to be a close encounter against two evenly matched teams. Both sides will also feel like that the 2023/24 campaign didn't represent their true collective talents.

Considering that Wolfsburg are (like the Bees) now tipped for far better things this season with the potential to push for a European position, this should prove to be an ideal test for Brentford ahead of that opening Premier League fixture against Crystal Palace on 18 August.

Ex-Wolfsburg manager and current Palace boss Oliver Glasner will surely be watching on closely.

Scout Report

Dan Long, Sky Sports: New goalkeeper a point of intrigue ahead of Wolfsburg's 2024/25 campaign

One thing is for certain: there is rarely a dull moment for Wolfsburg fans.

Since the German outfit won the Bundesliga for the first and only time in 2008/09, they have finished in the top seven five times, eighth four times and had several scrapes with relegation.

When Niko Kovač was sacked in March, he became the 12th permanent manager of the club to come and go in less than 15 years. In fairness, it looked as though it was coming for a little while.

The German-born Croatian succeeded Florian Kohfeldt in the summer of 2022, after the club finished 12th; their lowest position in four seasons.

Kohfeldt came with good pedigree, having won the Bundesliga during his time at Bayern Munich and the DFB-Pokal with Bayern and Frankfurt. Wolfsburg finished eighth and, to an extent, seemed to be on the right track.

The club backed Kovač and spent a reported total of around €80 million to set him up for further improvement, though much of that was seemingly reinvestment of the funds generated by the sales of Mickey van de Ven to Tottenham and Felix Nmecha to Borussia Dortmund.

The season started reasonably well, with four wins from the first six games putting them firmly inside the top seven. Yet between 7 October and 16 March, Wolfsburg picked up only 13 of the 60 points on offer.

The board decided to make a change in order to try and put intensifying relegation threats to bed and, at the start of the March international break, brought in former Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhüttl.

He boosted morale with an opening 2-0 win over Werder Bremen and further victories against VfL Bochum, Freiburg and Darmstadt. Four defeats prevented them from climbing higher than 12th, but the four-point gap to 16th-placed Bochum was all that mattered.

Now back to the drawing board again, in contrast to last year, Wolfsburg have spent a rather more conservative €32 million so far this summer.

They have brought in goalkeepers Kamil Grabara and Marius Muller, in an attempt to fill the void left by Koen Casteels - who had held the no.1 shirt for nine seasons - after his move to Saudi Pro League side Al Qadsiah.

Casteels' departure aside, the window has been kind, and, as clichéd as it sounds, Hasenhuttl has had plenty of time to get to know his players, mould his squad and get a pre-season under his belt.

And, if he can build upon the end of last season, like Ronan Murphy tells us, optimism that Wolfsburg can mix it with the top six again will grow quickly.

In the Dugout

Ralph Hasenhüttl

After starting out at GAK in his hometown of Graz, Ralph Hasenhüttl signed for Austria Wien in the summer of 1989 and enjoyed five successful years at the club, winning three Austrian Bundesliga titles between 1991 and 1993, as well as two Austrian Cups.

He moved on to Austria Salzburg - now Red Bull Salzburg - in 1994 and spent two years there, adding a league title and Austrian Super Cup medal to his collection. By this point, he had earned his eight caps for Austria, scoring three times.

He then made the move northwest across Europe to Belgium, where he turned out for Mechelen and Lierse. With the latter, he lifted the Belgian Super Cup in 1997.

The final six years of his playing career were spent in Germany with Cologne, Greuther Furth and Bayern Munich II, where he scored 30 league goals in 149 appearances.

Three years after retiring, in 2007, he started his management career at SpVgg Unterhaching. In 2011, he joined VfR Aalen and guided them to promotion from the German third tier in his first season in charge, before he took Ingolstadt to the German Bundesliga for the first time in their history in 2014/15.

Hasenhuttl was in charge of RB Leipzig between May 2016 and May 2018 and, seven months later, came to England for the first time when he replaced Mark Hughes at Southampton to become the first Austrian to manage in the Premier League.

Saints finished 16th, 11th, 15th and 15th under the Austrian, who oversaw two infamous 9-0 defeats - the joint-heaviest in Premier League history - to Leicester in 2019 and Manchester United in 2021.

He was dismissed in November 2022, with the club sitting 18th during the campaign their 11-year stay in the top flight came to an end, but was back in management less than 18 months later when he was appointed Wolfsburg head coach in March.

The Gameplan

With Ronan Murphy, Bundesliga expert

Ronan Murphy, Bundesliga expert and pundit, explains how Ralph Hasenhüttl is likely to set up his Wolfsburg side on Friday evening:

"So far under Hasenhüttl, Wolfsburg have played a defensive-minded 3-4-1-2, with the Austrian not sticking with the famed 4-2-2-2 Red Bull approach he used at RB Leipzig and Southampton.

"However, some elements of that vertical approach remain and the Wolves will look to score on the counter and break quickly while also pressing high up the pitch."

Read our full interview with Ronan Murphy here.

Last time out

Watford 1 Brentford 1 (3 August 2024)

Kevin Schade scored his second goal of the summer as Brentford drew 1-1 with Watford in a pre-season friendly on Saturday.

The Germany international rose above Ryan Andrews to head home Ryan Trevitt’s cross on six minutes.

However, the Bees’ lead was short-lived as Moussa Sissoko levelled with a deflected finish.