Brentford welcome Wolverhampton Wanderers to Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday (3pm kick-off) for their final Premier League fixture before the October international break.
The Bees drew 1-1 with West Ham United last time out, while Wolves lost 2-1 to Liverpool.
Analysis, team news, match officials and more. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the game.
Pre-match Analysis
Playmaker Stats: Home comforts key for Brentford
Brentford take on Wolves at Gtech Community Stadium this weekend looking to preserve their unbeaten start to life at home in the 2024/25 Premier League campaign.
The Bees have had a very tough fixture list to begin the campaign with trips to Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in the opening set of six matches, but they have competed in all three, scoring opening-minute goals to take the lead at both City and Spurs, whilst taking advantage of being at home to collect seven points from their other three games.
Collecting points and getting them on the board in all of your ‘other games’ is essential when starting with such a tough run of fixtures on the road and that is exactly what Thomas Frank’s side have done thus far.
The Bees have, like last season, slightly underperformed their expected goals so far this season by 0.52 across the six matches but that will actually give them a belief and confidence that, even whilst still playing well and collecting points, the best is yet to come.
One thing that will concern Frank would be the fact they have conceded nine goals when their expected goals against has been much higher at 12.72. However, with such a small sample size this early into the season and given the standard of the opposition, this is a reasonable number and the performances of Mark Flekken must be praised.
In contrast, Wolverhampton Wanderers have conceded the most goals in the Premier League so far this season with 16 let in and just 11.4 as their expected goals – and they, too, have had a tough start in terms of who they have faced.
This game could actually go against the tide in being quite a low-scoring affair. However, with the form of Bryan Mbeumo, now Brentford’s most productive Premier League player ever in terms of direct goal involvements, the home advantage and general improvement of the Bees’ performances on last season, there is good reason to believe the west Londoners will head into the October international break feeling very pleased with their work.
Scout Report
Dan Long, Sky Sports: Wolves in need of points after challenging start to the season
Wolves’ plans for the season were thrown into disarray in August 2023 when, just six days before the Premier League curtain-raiser at Manchester United, Julen Lopetegui left.
Apparent disagreements off the pitch had proved too much to contend with for both parties and the Spaniard left Molineux by mutual consent.
With little time to reflect after his own sudden exit at Bournemouth, Gary O’Neil replaced the former Real Madrid and Spain manager, having clearly impressed the board with his firefighting job at Vitality Stadium, which had seen the Cherries flirt with relegation in a season where they had been beaten 9-0 in the opening month, yet ultimately finish five points above the drop zone.
The short turnaround period and the big money sales of Rúben Neves and Matheus Nunes made it unfair to judge him too harshly when Wolves lost four of their first five league games.
On the whole, 2023/24 was a successful season. Not quite as gripping as the club’s first two back in the top flight under Nuno Espírito Santo, but solid – not least as, for only the second time, they reached the 50-goal mark in a single Premier League season. They reached the quarter-final of the FA Cup for the second time in six seasons, too.
O’Neil was seen to have done such a terrific job at stabilising things that he was handed a new four-year contract, along with his assistant Tim Jenkins, coaches Shaun Derry and Ian Burchnall, head of goalkeeping Neil Cutler and analyst Woody Dewar.
"He works very hard and is very humble,” said chair Jeff Shi. “He might be the humblest manager I have ever worked with and one of the most hard-working coaches I've ever met. His strengths are around his tactics and his chemistry with the players." It was a most welcome show of faith.
Wolves brought in transfer fees of around £100 million in the summer, most of which came from the big-money sales of Max Kilman to West Ham and Pedro Neto to Chelsea, and made a healthy £40 million profit after making signings of their own.
That is about as positive as it has got for them so far this term, though.
O’Neil’s side lost 2-0 at Arsenal on the opening weekend and it was 2-2 at half-time when they faced Chelsea in their first home league game the following week. After a second-half collapse – which facilitated a 14-minute hat-trick for Noni Madueke – they eventually lost 6-2.
“I didn't see the second half coming,” said O’Neil. “We know how brutal the Premier League can be if you drop your guard slightly. It’s a big week for myself, the players and the football club to get as much right in the next week as we can."
In fairness, they did - a win over Burnley in the Carabao Cup second round preceded a 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest and their first point of the season. But they haven’t won since. Four defeats later and they are out of the cup and bottom of the Premier League table.
Wolves’ Expected Points total is 5.13, 4.13 more than their actual points total of one – and though their Expected Goals Against total is 11.4, they actually have the leakiest defence in the league, having shipped 16 goals in six games.
Factoring in the end of last season, Wolves have lost 11 of their last 15 league games and picked up six of the 45 points on offer in those games.
O’Neil has done it before, but he’ll need to work his magic quickly to get both himself and the club out of their current predicament.
In the Dugout
Gary O'Neil
Gary O’Neil is a familiar face for the majority of English football fans, having played in either the Premier League or the Championship for the entirety of his 19-year career.
The former England Under-21 international played more than 500 games for the likes of Portsmouth, West Ham United and Norwich City, and won promotion from the second tier a remarkable four times.
He only retired from playing the game five years ago, having finished at Bolton Wanderers in May 2019 - after winning their Player of the Year award - and then been unable to find a club to prolong his career with after sustaining an Achilles injury.
O’Neil’s coaching career began just over a year later in August 2020, when he worked as the assistant Barry Lewtas with Liverpool U23s and, six months later, he was drafted in as first-team coach at Bournemouth, after Jonathan Woodgate’s appointment.
Woodgate departed Vitality Stadium that summer, but O’Neil stayed on to work under former West Ham team-mate Scott Parker and, when Parker left shortly after promotion back to the Premier League at the start of the 2022/23 campaign, he was appointed as head coach last November after three months as caretaker.
The 40-year-old kept the Cherries in the top flight for another season, securing a 15th-place finish, five points above the relegation zone, but was sacked in June 2023 in favour of Andoni Iraola.
O’Neil was out of work for less than two months, though, as Wolves appointed him last August, shortly after the shock departure of Julen Lopetegui from Molineux.
The Gameplan
With The Athletic’s Steve Madeley
The Athletic’s Steve Madeley explains how Gary O’Neil is likely to set up his Wolves side on Saturday:
“It has been four at the back all season and they have currently got a shortage of centre-backs, so I would not expect that to change and go to a back three, which they played with for some of last season.
“In previous games, it has been more of a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1, so I would expect O’Neil to go with one of those.
“But whether he sticks with an orthodox midfield three, I am not too sure.”
Last Premier League starting XI v Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Johnstone; Semedo, Bueno, Gomes, Nouri; Lemina, André; Cunha, Gomes, Bellegarde; Larsen
Read our full interview with Steve Madeley here
Match Officials
Madley the man in the middle at the Gtech
Referee: Andrew Madley
Assistants: Nick Hopton and Wade Smith
Fourth official: James Bell
VAR: Michael Oliver
Andrew Madley took charge of a Premier League game for the first time on 31 March 2018: a 2-2 draw between Watford and Bournemouth.
Last season, Madley officiated 35 matches including four Brentford fixtures.
In total, Madley showed 122 yellow cards and one red card last term.
Last Meeting
Wolves 0 Brentford 2 (Premier League, 10 February 2024)
Goals from Christian Nørgaard and Ivan Toney secured Brentford a crucial 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Bees defended superbly in the Black Country, keeping a clean sheet against a free-scoring Wolves side.
A superb save from Mark Flekken in the first half and a disallowed Craig Dawson header in the second period helped secure the victory, which lifts the west Londoners up to 14th in the Premier League table.