Match Preview
Brentford vrs Fulham
Premier League Match Day 33 25/26 at Gtech Community Stadium
Saturday 18th April 2026 KO: 12:30
Referee:
Paul Tierney (Lancashire)
Live on TNT Sports
|
Fulham and Brentford, both aiming to finish in the top seven, square off at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday lunchtime, in a West London derby.
The Cottagers are looking to complete the double over the Bees for the second successive season after winning 3-1 in the reverse fixture at Craven Cottage seven months ago.
Fulham slipped from ninth to 12th in the Premier League table following last weekend’s 2-0 defeat against Liverpool at Anfield – their 14th loss in what has been an inconsistent 2025-26 campaign for Marco Silva’s side.
The Cottagers have largely struggled to prevail in battles against top-10 opposition, having lost 10 of their last 15 Premier League meetings with teams starting the day in the top half (W3 D2), including each of their last four since beating Chelsea 2-1 on home soil in January.
Bright starts in matches have been hard to come by the Fulham this season, as no Premier League team has scored fewer first-half goals (four) since the turn of the year. This lack of production is largely down to poor finishing, with the Cottagers underperforming their first-half xG of 8.2 by a league-high margin of over four goals.
Fulham will take comfort from their recent record against Brentford, though, winning four of their last seven encounters (D1 L2) and each of their last three in the top flight by an aggregate score of 8-4 – more than they recorded in their first 14 meetings with the Bees in the 21st century (W2 D4 L8).
Silva, meanwhile, has won 1.86 points per game against Brentford as a Premier League manager (P7 W4 D1 L2), and he only boasts a higher ratio against Nottingham Forest (2.38) and Southampton (2.10) among the 19 different teams he has faced at least five times in the division.
The Bees, who have only ever drawn five league matches in a row once before (March/April 1957), have struggled to take advantage of leads in the top flight this season, with only Newcastle United (30) having conceded more goals after scoring first than Keith Andrews’s side (24).
Nevertheless, Brentford remain on course for their highest-ever Premier League finish, as they sit seventh in the table and known that a victory against Fulham would see them climb above Chelsea into sixth place, before the Blues take on Manchester United on Saturday night.
Seeking to qualify for Europe for the first time in their 137-year history, Brentford have collected 27 of their 47 Premier League points on home soil this season - the eighth-best home tally in the division - but they are without a win across their last five matches at the Gtech Community Stadium (D3 L2).
The Bees have also failed to come out on top in any of their last four encounters with Fulham; they lost their most recent home clash by a 3-2 scoreline last season, but they have not suffered back-to-back home league defeats against the Cottagers since April 1998.
|
-
Fulham have won each of their last three league games against Brentford, more than they had in their first 14 21st century meetings with the Bees (W2 D4 L8).
-
Brentford lost this exact fixture 3-2 last season, but haven’t lost consecutive home league games against Fulham since April 1998.
-
Fulham have lost 10 of their last 15 Premier League games against teams starting the day in the top-half (W3 D2), including the last four in a row since a 2-1 win over Chelsea in January.
-
Since the turn of the year, no side has scored fewer first half Premier League goals than Fulham (4) while the Cottagers have underperformed their xG by the biggest margin in the first halves of games, scoring just over four fewer goals than they’d have been expected on their xG of 8.2.
-
Fulham have had 41 shots in their last two Premier League games (22 vs Burnley, 19 vs Liverpool), an average of 20.5 per game; they were averaging just 12 shots per game this season before this. Only Man City (42) have had more attempts on goal across in their last two Premier League matches than Fulham.
-
Fulham manager Marco Silva has won 1.86 points-per-game against Brentford in the Premier League (P7 W4 D1 L2) – among the 19 teams he’s faced at least five times, he’s only had a higher ratio against Nottingham Forest (2.38) and Southampton (2.10).
-
Brentford have drawn each of their last four Premier League matches, having only drawn four of their first 28 games in 2025-26 (W13 D11). The Bees have only drawn five league games in a row once before, doing so in March/April 1957.
-
Only Newcastle United (30) have conceded more goals after scoring first in Premier League games this season than Brentford (24), whose last three games when going 1-0 ahead have seen them win 4-3 at Burnley and draw 2-2 with both Wolves and Everton.
-
Brentford have scored 28 of their 32 Premier League penalties, with that 87.5% conversion ratio the third best of any side to take 30 or more, behind Burnley (90%, scored 27/30) and Chelsea (87.6%, scored 163/186). Since joining the competition in 2021-22, only Chelsea (33) and Man City (31) have scored more than their 28.
-
Only Erling Haaland (22) has scored more Premier League goals this season than Brentford’s Igor Thiago (21). The last Brazilian player to score more in a season in one of Europe’s big-five leagues was Neymar for Barcelona in 2015-16
`
`
Source Oliver Thomas |at SportsMole/BBCSports