Brentford travel to Everton looking to extend their 12-game unbeaten run in the Premier League.

It’s a run of form that has Thomas Frank’s side comfortably inside the Premier League’s top 10 heading into the final third of the campaign.

Saturday’s hosts Everton find themselves at the other end of the table, occupying the final relegation spot following just two wins in all competitions since late October.

The opposition

Everton slip back into the relegation zone following three-game winless run

When Everton came to west London for their game at the Gtech Community Stadium in August, the brentfordfc.com match preview suggested that, after a tough 2021/22 campaign, ‘early indications are that this season may not be much easier.’ And so it has proved.

Just three wins from 20 Premier League games to begin the campaign cost Frank Lampard his job in late January.

Replacement Sean Dyche had an instant impact with two victories, over Arsenal and Leeds United, in his first three games in charge, but one point from their last three matches has seen Everton slide back into the relegation zone.

Much of the blame from Everton fans for the situation they find themselves in has been directed at those in charge off the pitch, rather than on it.

Goals have been in short supply all season for the Toffees, with their tally of 19 the lowest in the Premier League.

That situation hasn’t been helped by Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s injury issues, but it has been the sales of Richarlison and Anthony Gordon which has particularly upset the blue half of Merseyside.

Demarai Gray is Everton’s top scorer with four league goals this season but, behind him, Dwight McNeil is the only other player still at the club with multiple league strikes to their name.

Calvert-Lewin has not been the only key Everton player to spend much of the season out injured; Yerry Mina, Ben Godfrey and Mason Holgate all missed the majority of the pre-World Cup fixtures.

In their place, former Bee James Tarkowski and Conor Coady established themselves at the heart of an Everton defence which has only conceded three goals more than Manchester United and two more than Tottenham Hotspur.

Since Dyche has come in, he has tweaked Everton’s set-up to play a 4-5-1 as supposed to Lampard’s 4-3-3.

Jordan Pickford has missed just one game in goal all season with Vitaliy Mykolenko and Seamus Coleman at full-back in recent weeks.

In midfield, 21-year-old Amadou Onana has been one of Everton’s standout players this campaign with his midfield partner Idrissa Gueye leading the league in interceptions.

Abdoulaye Doucoure has started every game since Dyche has taken over with Alex Iwobi and McNeil playing out wide in support of another former Bee Neal Maupay as the lone striker.

Team news

Brentford’s Lewis-Potter set for spell on the sidelines, while Everton’s Calvert-Lewin is doubtful for Saturday

Keane Lewis-Potter will be out for up to two months due to a knee injury picked up in training ahead of Brentford’s game against Fulham.

Goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha (ankle) has returned to training but will not be available for the trip to Goodison Park.

Everyone else is fit and available for selection. 

For Everton, Dominic Calvert-Lewin (thigh) and Nathan Patterson (knee) are both making progress, but Saturday’s game looks set to come too soon for the pair.

Vitalii Mykolenko is trending in the right direction, following a virus, with Andros Townsend (ACL) a longer-term absentee. 

The manager

Sean Dyche

Having made his name keeping Burnley in the top flight for seven years, Sean Dyche is now trying to do the same with an Everton team he inherited in late January.

A no-nonsense centre-back, Dyche played more than 200 games for Chesterfield, scoring as the Spireites shared six goals with Middlesbrough in the 1997 FA Cup semi-final.

He also featured for Luton Town, Watford, Bristol City, Millwall and Northampton Town, earning promotion with each of the last three clubs.

He retired in 2007, taking up coaching with the youth teams at Watford.

He had a brief stint as manager at Vicarage Road following Malky Mackay's move to Cardiff City in 2011. The Hornets finished 11th in his only season in charge, their best in four seasons, but still replaced him at the end of the season.

A month coaching in the England Under-21 set-up was quickly followed by his appointment at Burnley in 2012.

Dyche won them top-flight promotion in his first season, but they suffered relegation at the first attempt.

He guided the side back to the Premier League in 2016, where they stayed until last season.

With relegation looking certain, Dyche parted company with the Clarets in April last year, spending nine months out of the game before his appointment at Goodison Park.

Last meeting

Brentford 1 Everton 1 (Premier League, 27 August 2022)

Vitaly Janelt netted a late equaliser to give Brentford a deserved share of the spoils at home to Everton.

In truth, Thomas Frank’s side deserved all three points, having hit the woodwork on three occasions, but it looked for long periods like they would leave with nothing following Anthony Gordon’s first-half strike.

However, as a first home defeat of the campaign loomed, Janelt found himself all alone at the back post to turn home Keane Lewis-Potter’s flick-on and salvage a point.

Match officials

Hooper the man in the middle at Goodison Park

Referee: Simon Hooper

Assistants: Adrian Holmes and Mark Schole 

Fourth official: Andy Madley

VAR: David Coote

Assistant VAR: Richard West

Experienced Wiltshire referee Simon Hooper, who tried to make it as a professional footballer in his youth, has taken charge of 25 Brentford games as both he, and the Bees, have worked their way up the divisions.

Hooper's first Brentford game came in October 2008 away at Aldershot in League Two before seven Sky Bet League One assignments from 2009 to 2013 followed.

In the Sky Bet Championship, he was the man in charge for our unforgettable 4-1 victory over Fulham at Craven Cottage in April 2015 and also refereed our 1-0 win at home to Queens Park Rangers in October of that same year.

Brentford have lost just once in Hooper’s last nine games in charge, five of which have come since promotion to the Premier League.

Last season’s assignments included a 7-0 Carabao Cup win over Oldham Athletic and April’s last-gasp win at Watford.

There was late drama in his only game this season too, Yoane Wissa’s header securing a point at Crystal Palace in August.

Everton 2022/23

264 fouls – 11th in Premier League

60 yellow cards – second in Premier League

0 red cards – joint-fewest in Premier League