If you like goals, interesting numbers, symmetry and entertainment, Brentford are the team for you.
They are the joint-top goalscorers in the Premier League, with 22 goals scored. Only Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City can match that.
They have the second-worst defence in the Premier League, with 22 goals conceded. Only Wolverhampton Wanderers (27) can top that.
Appropriately, given the goal-based symmetry, Brentford are in 10th place in the table. Despite that rather average position, they can lay claim with good reason to be the division’s most watchable team.
In fact, with 22 for and 22 against from 11 games, working out as *relies on basic GCSE maths* four goals per match, Brentford are on course to be the joint-most entertaining team in Premier League history.
There was once a team dubbed ‘The Entertainers’ by the name of Newcastle United under carefree manager Kevin Keegan in the 1990s, but they never managed more than 2.9 goals per game in their three Premier League seasons.
Brentford’s enjoyment comes from their equal ability to score and concede; not an exceptional team who let in a few, such as Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers (2013-14), nor an absolutely hideous side who can muster the odd goal, such as Sheffield United last season. Brentford’s attacking, imperfect approach leads to comebacks, it leads to losing games they should win (such as conceding two stoppage-time goals to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at Fulham on Monday) and it leads to them being exceptional value for money (Brentford’s season tickets are among the cheapest in the league).
At home, in particular, they are an absolute riot. Their last three league matches at the Gtech Community Stadium have produced three wins and 20 goals; 5-3 against Wolves, 4-3 versus Ipswich Town and now 3-2 over Bournemouth.
They are not just about the act of scoring or conceding a goal, they’re inventive with it. They score from free kicks, corners, kick-offs (it’s not as headline-grabbing as their run of first-minute goals earlier in the season, but they again scored from a kick-off here, netting 21 seconds after Bournemouth had gone 2-1 up) and throw-ins (Yoane Wissa scored from a long throw, their eighth goal from a throw-in since promotion in 2021 — more than twice as many as anyone else). They can also score a gorgeous team goal, such as Wissa’s winner here when Brentford sashayed their way through Bournemouth’s defence and the DR Congo striker sensually chipped the ‘keeper.
They can also score very early, as when scoring inside 90 seconds for four consecutive matches in September and October, or they keep the drama going right up until stoppage time at the end of a match, with six goals either for or against them in stoppage times this season.
That almost happened here too, with Bournemouth hitting the bar in the 96th minute through Dean Huijsen, mimicking when Ipswich’s Liam Delap smashed the woodwork in the 97th minute of Brentford’s last home match.
With the way they try and score, they play the percentages. They can play nice, but they can also be agricultural, be it the shameless s***housery we had seen from them for a few years now, or some agricultural hoofing out the back when protecting a lead or, as witnessed here in the final seconds when Yehor Yarmoliuk challenges for the ball to stop a Bournemouth counter and kerplunks the ball behind for a goal kick to waste time.
Thomas Frank is also imaginative with where he selects his players; Keane Lewis-Potter played as a left-back for the first time in his career and did a fine job of subduing Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo, who was moved to the other flank. Wissa, who joined as a wide man, now exclusively plays up front and scored twice to take his season’s tally to seven goals in 10 appearances.
It’s not all positive. They can also entertain with buffoonery, such as Sepp van den Berg inexplicably looking backwards into his own half, not seeing Bournemouth striker Evanilson and playing the ball to the Brazilian for him to make it 1-0 in the first half.
They are fallible defensively, but hey, it just adds to their charm.
(Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
All credit is due to Thomas Frank, who, despite Brentford’s financial constraints compared with their divisional rivals (not helped by having the second-smallest stadium in the league), consistently overperforms. And entertains.
“Yeah, never boring,” he says. “I’m a positive guy, so more focusing on the positive, which is we are a very dangerous team going forward.
“We’ve scored the most goals in the league… that’s incredible. We’re Brentford, we have the third- or fourth-lowest budget — it’s normally only the big boys that do that.
“That is insanely good. People don’t understand how good that is. But of course I’m also very ambitious and I would like us to win 3-0 today. That’s something we need to look into.”
And all this having lost their most high-profile player by some distance in the summer, with Ivan Toney swapping Brentford for Saudi Arabia in the prime of his career.
Frank has lost Toney and somehow looks to have made Brentford better for it.
“When someone leaves, others get more opportunities to shine,” he said of any fears around a post-Toney team this season. “And I knew the level of Wissa and Bryan, I’m confident in Keane and Kevin (Schade) and we know there’s some excitement about Igor Thiago (their injured club-record signing) who hasn’t played one second for us.
“I also knew last year when Ivan was out, Yoanne and Bryan scored a lot of goals. With all that knowledge, I was quite confident we weren’t lacking goals (although) maybe I haven’t even been that optimistic and calculated in (how many).”
They are surprising their own manager — and certainly surprising everyone else.
Brentford: the Premier League’s great entertainers.
(Top photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
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