Preview: Brentford host Liverpool on Saturday night
Saturday evening sees Premier League champions Liverpool travel to the Gtech Community Stadium to face Brentford. The Reds are looking to bring a three match losing streak to an end in the English top flight having returned to winning ways on Wednesday against Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League.
By Sam McGuire
The story so far
Liverpool are yet to draw a game this season. Arne Slot‘s side started with seven successive wins across all competitions before losing four on the spin.
They surrendered an early lead at the summit of the Premier League and now find themselves four points off the face after losses to Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Manchester United.
A resounding 5-1 win over an underwhelming Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday may have snapped the Reds out of their rut. However, the real test will be against the Bees on Saturday evening.
Brentford have been pretty inconsistent this term. They’ve suffered defeats against Nottingham Forest, Sunderland, Fulham and Manchester City but picked up wins over Aston Villa, Manchester United and West Ham United.
Keith Andrews has done a decent job since replacing Thomas Frank and has managed to get Igor Thiago firing.
Recent form
It might be hard to believe this but Brentford are the form team heading into this game with seven points from their last five in the Premier League. They took a point off of Chelsea in a 2-2 draw, hammered Manchester United 3-1 and claimed a comfortable 2-0 win over West Ham during this period.
Defensively, things have improved recently, with the Bees conceding just two across their last three outings, and this included a game against Manchester City.
Liverpool have six points across their last five Premier League games and are without a win since the 20th September when the Reds beat Everton 2-1 in the Merseyside derby.
Slot’s men are struggling for goals and have managed just one clean sheet across these fixtures, away at Burnley.
Key Players
For the hosts, the main man is Thiago. He was the Player of the Match against West Ham last time out, earning himself an 8.6 FotMob rating. He’s scored for the Bees in wins over the Hammers, Manchester United and Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup. The 24 year-old also found the back of the net in defeats to Sunderland and Nottingham Forest.
Thiago has been responsible for five of his team’s 11 goals this term.
For Liverpool, the key player is a surprising one. It is Cody Gakpo.
He’s scored in five successive games for club and country. He’s the joint top scorer for the Reds in the Premier League with three goals and his average FotMob rating of 7.67 is the highest in the Liverpool team.
Team News
Liverpool are without Alisson Becker, Jeremie Frimpong, Alexander Isak and Giovanni Leoni while Ryan Gravenberch remains an injury doubt after sustaining an injury against United last weekend.
Brentford are missing Scotland international Aaron Hickey. Other than that, Andrews has a full squad available to him for this Saturday night clash.
Prediction
If Liverpool have title aspirations, a win is needed here. The way Brentford are playing means it’ll be a tough game though. Both teams are going to score. The Reds might edge it after a confidence boost on Wednesday. We’re saying 2-1 to the visitors.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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