Man City vs Brentford Odds
| Man City Odds | -500 |
| Brentford Odds | +1000 |
| Draw | +650 |
| Over / Under | 3.5 -110 / -110 |
Man City look to stay atop the Premier League table when they host Brentford at the Etihad.
Manchester City are rolling once again to start the Premier League season. They have won their first three matches against Chelsea, Ipswich Town and West Ham without much of a sweat. This is a very interesting match and spot though for Manchester City with two huge matches on the horizon. Brentford have been a pest to them over the years so there is a chance they slip up.
The Bees are off to a great start to the season, winning two of their first three matches. Thomas Frank's side had a season of massive underperformance in 2023 and they are starting to see some of that positive regression here to start 2024. They sold their star striker Ivan Toney to Al Ahli, but Brentford still have the core of their team together. They were the only team to beat Manchester City twice during their treble winning season in 2022, so they are definitely capable of pulling an upset.
Here is my Man City vs Brentford prediction.
Man City
One underrated aspect of Manchester City this season is how they’ve gotten back to the basics. For all of his complex tactics, Pep Guardiola knows that at the end of the day winning duels is far more important than anything and nobody is doing that better than Manchester City right now. They have a 62.2% ground duel win rate, which is the best mark in the Premier League, and that is without Rodri playing at all.
Manchester City have put up over three expected goals in back to back matches, but let’s be honest, it’s come against two of the worst defensive teams in the Premier League. The other thing is Brentford are not going to try and build out of the back. Where West Ham and Ipswich ran into issues and why they eventually fell behind City is because they kept turning it over in their own final third, which led to easy transition opportunities for City.
With Rodri back in the lineup, Manchester City will try to exert as much control as possible in this match just like they did last year against Brentford, when they held over 70% of the possession in both matches. The second half against Ipswich was a good example of how Manchester City can put a stranglehold on a match. Ipswich took one shot for the entire match and only had 40 touches in Manchester City's final third, so if they go ahead, look for Pep to put his foot on break with two massive matches on the horizon.
Brentford
Brentford may not be the defensive team they were two years ago when they were the only team to do the double over Manchester City, but they are sure capable of sitting in their 5-3-2 defensive block and making life difficult for Manchester City. A good example of this match is Brentford’s match against Liverpool in match week two. Oftentimes when massive underdogs like this concede early, they come out of whatever defensive block they were in and try to chase the game. That’s what happened to West Ham two weeks ago against Manchester City and they got punished when they tried to press City’s build up.
After Brentford conceded in the 13th minute, they continued to stay in their low defensive block for a majority of the match and actually did a good job of limiting Liverpool’s chances. Manchester City were able to create over two expected goals against Brentford in both meetings, but the Bees were also in the middle of a difficult run and dealing with a lot of injuries.
The issue here for Brentford is how dangerous can they be when they get their transition opportunities. They weren’t able to do anything against Liverpool and their best chances came off of set pieces.
Man City vs Brentford
Prediction
The total in this game is a little too high for me.
For the longest time Manchester City really struggled defending in transition because their press wasn't good enough. You are starting to see that press really improve this season with their high duel win rate and how many high recoveries they are forcing. But the biggest thing is they aren't allowing high quality chances in transition so far. West Ham, Ipswich and Chelsea all created less than one expected goal against Manchester City's defense and honestly they should do the same to Brentford.
The Bees aren't going to make the same mistakes in build up that Ipswich and West Ham did to give City easy opportunities. They are going to sit in a low defensive block and deny space through the middle, which is going to make the pace of this match really slow.
This is also the first match out of an international break where players are traveling back to England from all over the world, so with tired legs and limited training time, this really does point to a low-event type match. On top of that, Manchester City have Inter in the Champions League during the week and Arsenal on the weekend, so if they were going to rotate their squad, this would be the match.
I only have 2.9 goals projected for this match, so I like the value on the under at +100.
