Formed by Hammers supporters Jack Elderton and Callum Goodall to offer their fellow fans in-depth but accessible analysis of their team and its players, Analytics United use performance analysis and data to examine how the Bees could approach their visit to London Stadium…
Managed by former set-piece coach Keith Andrews, Brentford have had a solid start to the season, picking up seven points from their first seven games despite losing manager Thomas Frank and star players Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Christian Nørgaard in the summer.
It may have been a summer of significant change in terms of personnel at the Gtech Community Stadium, but the changes have brought about a distillation of ideas seen previously in west London, as Andrews has adopted an even more focused version of Frank’s style. This doesn’t come as a surprise given Andrews’ previous position on Frank’s coaching staff and Brentford’s bold decision to promote from within, retaining the strengths of their internal structure rather than entrusting a new external coach to come in and refresh the project.
Last season, Brentford used slow-tempo deep build-up to incentivise opposition pressure before dropping Wissa alongside Mikkel Damsgaard, overloading single-pivot midfielders and creating routes to progress directly into the frontline. Damsgaard could typically receive in acres of space between the lines before turning and supplying pinpoint through passes for the pacy trio of Wissa, Mbeumo and Kevin Schade. Maintaining this approach whilst losing two of the four key players, who scored 39 goals between them (60% of Brentford’s goals last season), was always going to be an incredibly challenging task, but the Bees have found good solutions to keep the pace and physicality of their frontline at an almost irrepressible level in transition.

Dango Ouattara joined from Bournemouth to replace the speed of Mbeumo and Igor Thiago, who has finally recovered from the knee injury that kept him out for the vast majority of last season, has come into the starting line-up, replacing Wissa, harking back to the days when Ivan Toney led the line when the Bees were first promoted to the Premier League. Rather than dropping the number nine in, creating those central overloads and opening space for Damsgaard, Andrews has instead leaned further into longer forward balls up to Thiago, looking for flick-ons for the wingers who maraud in off the flanks.
These ideas have worked perfectly in transition. As the opposition commit bodies forward to try and break Brentford down, Andrews’ side can look for quick long balls forward, win the physical battle to get first contact with the ball and then maximise the speed mismatch against recovering centre-halves. This style functions particularly well when considering the approach that Brentford take to defending as the Bees refuse to be overloaded on their backline, defending with lots of bodies in their own third and forcing opposition crosses as much as possible for Nathan Collins to head away.
The Irish centre-back was often criticised for the mistakes he made when turning out in the old gold of Wolves, but Collins has come on leaps and bounds since then and ranks in the top 20% for clearances (6.29 per 90), the top 16% for aerials won (2.92 per 90) and the top 3% for shots blocked (1.26 per 90), all amongst centre-backs in Europe’s top five leagues. His partner Sepp van den Berg also functions to a high level in this style, winning 3.33 aerials per 90 and ranking in the top 7% in the same sample.

In midfield, captain Nørgaard has been a big miss but Jordan Henderson has come in to contribute his leadership qualities alongside young Ukrainian midfielder Yehor Yarmolyuk. The latter has been improving at a rapid rate since signing from SC Dnipro-1 for Brentford’s B team in 2022 and is probably the best example so far of the improved youth promotion success that the Bees hoped to achieve by replacing their academy with the B-team structure in 2016. Another recent signing who has played incredibly well so far this season is Michael Kayode. Signed in January from Fiorentina, Kayode has excelled in all areas for Andrews in the opening matches of the 2025/26 season, ranking in the top 2% for successful take-ons in attack (1.75 per 90) and in the top 7% for success against opposition dribblers (81.8%), showing his ability to move the ball forward with success and stop wingers from doing the same against him.
If there is one thing that isn’t working so well at Brentford at the moment, it is probably the first-phase build-up risk-to-reward ratio. Splitting the centre-backs wide, pushing the full-backs on and dropping a midfielder into defence should, in theory, stimulate the kind of opposition pressure that enables direct balls forward against overloaded backlines. However, the spacing between Brentford’s players in this situational 3-1-1-5 shape has led to some pretty hairy situations under pressure where, with a lack of central options to pass to, low turnovers have been conceded and left them facing dangerous attacks.
This is the only thing that looks as though it could compromise their incredibly impressive 0.04 positive differential in chance quality, ranking third in the division so far this season behind Crystal Palace and Manchester City (0.05). When analysing teams that are comfortable conceding more chances, opting to defend with packed penalty areas rather than deploying riskier high presses or leaving forwards high, chance quality differential is a good way of assessing the success of this approach. It gives us insight into the actual level of chances conceded, in comparison to the quality produced on counter-attacks, rather than simply writing teams off defensively because they concede more shots. Even then, Brentford’s consistency in getting everyone back to help defend enables them to block lots of the shots that they come up against, ranking third in the division for blocks (32).

After a positive performance in his first away game against Everton, Nuno Espírito Santo will hope his side can bounce back from defeat against Arsenal and show the same box defending and duelling qualities to get through another tough physical battle against Brentford.
If the centre-backs can win their duels against Thiago and the team can defend well as a whole against the major set-piece threat posed by the Bees, especially from long throws, then there are chances to be found in transition when Andrews’ side leave themselves vulnerable as they look to bait pressure and create the space for dynamic wide progression. With players like Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville and El Hadji Malick Diouf all physically capable of exploiting these opportunities to create chances or score themselves, Nuno’s side are well-stocked in the right areas to find success in this crucial first home match.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Analytics United and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of West Ham United.
