Brentford vs Arsenal

Gtech Community Stadium forms the backdrop for an all-London Premier League showdown between Brentford and Arsenal.

Brentford picked up only their second point on the road this term last Friday, drawing 0-0 at Brighton (D2, L7). It wasn’t an ideal way to end the calendar year. However, manager Thomas Frank can draw confidence from the impending return to the Gtech Community Stadium, where the Bees have accumulated the division’s joint-high 22 home points this season (W7, D1, L1). It’s worth noting that the only blemish on this near-flawless record arrived in their last home outing as Nottingham Forest took a 2-0 win, marking Brentford’s only scoring blank in London across 11 competitive home matches in 2024/25. That spells trouble for the hosts, especially considering they’ve lost their last three home H2Hs against Arsenal without finding the back of the net.

In the meantime, Arsenal squeezed past newcomers Ipswich Town 1-0 in their last Premier League fixture to extend their unbeaten run in all competitions to 11 (W8, D3) and maintain a nine-point deficit on leaders Liverpool. Since a 1-0 defeat at Newcastle United at the start of November, Mikel Arteta’s men have alternated between victories (2) and draws (2) across their last four league travels, suggesting another London derby success is anything but a foregone conclusion. Against this backdrop, Arsenal fared outstandingly in top-flight encounters against fellow crosstown rivals in 2024, going unbeaten in all ten such meetings throughout the last calendar year (W8, D2). A slight concern comes from the fact that they’ve failed to keep a clean sheet in eight consecutive away league games since mid-September.