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).