Tottenham vs Brentford Odds
| Tottenham Odds | -154 |
| Brentford Odds | +375 |
| Draw | +350 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -200/+150 |
Ivan Toney returned for Brentford last match with a dramatic free-kick goal in an eventual 3-2 home win for the Bees to end their brutal run of form. Brentford had zero wins in seven matches in all competitions entering that match, and five consecutive league losses sent them tumbling down the table.
The absence of Yoanne Wissa due to AFCON and Bryan Mbeumo due to injury also left them shorthanded on attacking options. Toney's return became all the more critical as a result, and his creativity on the break powered Brentford to excellent overachieving seasons.
Tottenham is headed toward another season without a trophy after Spurs' 1-0 home defeat to Manchester City in the FA Cup on Friday. Now knocked out of both domestic cups and not in Europe to begin with, Spurs will only have the league to focus on for the remainder of the season.
They are solid home favorites to take all three points in this match, but there's not a full goal separating the true quality of these teams now that Toney is back, and Hueng-min Son remains on international duty for Tottenham.
Tottenham
Spurs had an excellent defensive match against Manchester United away from home when they allowed just 0.8 Expected Goals and played to a solid 2-2 draw away from home. It was the first match with both Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven healthy together since November, which gave cause for some optimism that Spurs would be better defensively again now.
Given their tactical set up, though, it's hard to see how this Spurs team won't be consistently open at the back and vulnerable to transition attacks. It's in their DNA under Ange Postecoglou, and the system's foundation is outscoring opponents.
This is much easier to do with Son available, and even though James Maddison is expected to start for Spurs in his return from injury, there's a clear downgrade in quality from Son to Timo Werner with goalscoring output.
Spurs only managed one total shot in the match against City while conceding 18 to the Cityzens, who played without both Erling Haaland for the whole match and Kevin de Bruyne for the first 65 minutes. The midfield situation seriously lacks ball winning without both Yves Bissouma and Pape Matar Sarr, who are at AFCON and injured, respectively.
Tottenham presses with more intensity than everyone in the Premier League and also forces the most high turnovers. They could struggle to deal with Brentford's extremely direct approach to kick it over the press and let Toney and others work their magic in the space behind Spurs' high line.
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Brentford
Brentford has badly underperformed its underlying xG data at both ends of the pitch. Toney's return should help quell the poor finishing variance in the attacking box, but there's no clear fix for Mark Flekken's shot-stopping struggles in goal this season. No goalie in the PL has cost his team more goals relatively than Flekken this year, and it's why Brentford has conceded 33 goals from 26.5 Expected Goals.
The attack is still producing more than 1.5 xG per match during this poor run of form, but they haven't been converting enough of those chances into goals. Maybe the Forest match was them finding form, but Brentford is still completing a lot of crosses into the box and turning said crosses into big scoring chances at an above average clip.
Given Spurs' struggles to defend crosses all season — they rank eighth in Stopping Crosses and 12th in Big Scoring Chances Allowed — Brentford could exploit Tottenham and keep this match more even than expected.
Tottenham vs Brentford
Prediction
Based on the shot-stopping data, this is the best goalie in the Premier League (Guglielmo Vicario for Spurs) facing the worst in 2023-24 (Flekken). It's the only clear difference between the two clubs because their non-penalty xG difference at this point in the season is roughly even.
Spurs are rightly favored to win this match at home, but the defensive fragility and Brentford's impressive underlying portfolio suggests that the number is too high on Tottenham.
