We look ahead to Wednesday’s Premier League game at the Emirates Stadium between Arsenal and Brentford with our prediction and preview.
Arsenal vs Brentford: The Key Stats
With seven home wins in a row in all competitions, the Opta supercomputer considers Arsenal to be heavy favourites for this match versus Brentford, winning 71% of simulations.
Brentford have lost five of their six away Premier League matches this season, the second consecutive season they’ve had five defeats in six on the road at the start of the season. Before this, the Bees hadn’t done that in a league campaign since 1997-98.
Eberechi Eze has been involved in six goals in his five home Premier League appearances for Arsenal (4 goals, 2 assists), the joint-most goals and assists any Gunners player has managed in their first five home games.
It’s clear for all to see that Arsenal are the best team in the Premier League this season, and their dispatching of Bayern Munich last midweek was strong evidence for their claim as the best side in Europe, too.
Nonetheless, their draw away to Chelsea at the weekend proved the Gunners will not have it all their own way this season, and while they remain strong favourites to win a first Premier League title in over 20 years, they will have to battle for it.
Chelsea 1-1 Arsenal Stats
A draw at Chelsea is still a good result – the Blues are clearly a much-improved team this season – but it was mildly surprising to see Arsenal on the back foot for parts of the first half prior to Moisés Caicedo’s red card, and it was more surprising still to see Arsenal fail to dominate when playing against 10 men for nearly an hour.
In truth, Caicedo’s red card flattened what was set up to be a thrilling encounter between two expertly coached teams, and it would have been interesting for all observers to witness Mikel Arteta’s current creation put under the microscope in the second half without a numerical advantage.
It must of course be mentioned that Arsenal were without their usual central defensive pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães – just the second time neither started one of Arsenal’s league matches since the start of the 2022-23 season.
It may be that Arsenal once again feel like they have a point to prove, and you would not like to be their next designated opponent when they have extra motivation.
That role falls to Brentford this time around, but the Bees are not to be taken lightly, heading into Matchday 14 in 10th place after a run of four wins from six games.
Brentford are one of the surprises of the campaign and head coach Keith Andrews is surely in the early running for any Manager of the Season awards.
The former Republic of Ireland international was only appointed as Brentford’s set-piece coach in 2024, and the club deserve huge credit for then entrusting him to take over a year later from the outgoing Thomas Frank, whose Tottenham Hotspur side sit two places below Brentford heading into this matchday.
Not only did Brentford lose Frank, but they also lost Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United, Yoane Wissa to Newcastle, Christian Nørgaard to Arsenal, and Mark Flekken to Bayer Leverkusen.
It’s for those reasons that many tipped Brentford to be in a relegation scrap this season, but in his first managerial role, Andrews instead has them fighting to finish inside the top half of the table.
Igor Thiago is no doubt one of the main reasons behind Brentford’s expectation-defying results this season.
Brentford have scored 21 goals in the Premier League this term – a total which is only bettered by Manchester City (27), Arsenal (25) and Chelsea (24) – and Thiago accounts for 11 of those goals.
Igor Thiago 2025-26 Premier League Goals
His returns can only be bettered by Erling Haaland (14 goals), and it makes for an incredible comeback story considering the Brazilian played just 175 minutes of league football last season after suffering an injury to his meniscus.
Igor Thiago is yet to be capped for Brazil, but given this season will end with a World Cup, his timing could not be better. Carlo Ancelotti will find further goals hard to ignore.
He came off late with a knock after his brace against Burnley last time out, but he is expected to be fit for this encounter, and Brentford have no other fresh injury concerns.
Arsenal welcomed back Viktor Gyökeres last time out and he could be in line for a start here.
Martin Ødegaard made another appearance from the bench against Chelsea and he too will be pushing for a start.
Gabriel Jesus was fit enough for the bench at the weekend, but Leandro Trossard and Saliba sat the game out entirely, and it would be a surprise to see either start this match.
Arsenal vs Brentford Head-to-Head
Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw in their last match against Brentford at the Emirates Stadium back in April, after Wissa cancelled out a second-half goal from Thomas Partey. Brentford escaped with a point despite only attempting two shots in the game.
Since losing their first ever Premier League meeting with Brentford in August 2021, Arsenal are now unbeaten in their last seven against the Bees.
Brentford are winless in their last seven away games against Arsenal in all competitions, since a 2-0 league win in April 1938.
Arsenal vs Brentford Prediction
The Opta supercomputer envisions little chance of an upset here despite Brentford’s competitiveness; Arsenal were winners in 71% of simulations, with 16.5% of sims ending in a draw. Brentford pulled off a surprise victory in just 12.5% of sims.
Arsenal vs Brentford Prediction Opta
Arsenal vs Brentford Predicted Lineups
Arsenal: David Raya, Jurriën Timber, Cristhian Mosquera, Piero Hincapié, Riccardo Calafiori, Eberechi Eze, Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Mikel Merino.
Head coach: Mikel Arteta
Brentford: Caoimhín Kelleher, Michael Kayode, Nathan Collins, Sepp van den Berg, Kristoffer Ajer, Jordan Henderson, Mathias Jensen, Dango Ouattara, Mikkel Damsgaard, Kevin Schade, Igor Thiago.
Head coach: Keith Andrews
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 15,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Premier League Stats Opta
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