Nottingham Forest and Brentford will meet later this week on Thursday in the Premier League, live on talkSPORT 2.
The hosts will be looking to bounce back from the disappointment of losing to Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final and continue their push for the Champions League.
Nuno Espirito Santo‘s team went down 2-0 to the 2023/24 Premier League champions.
Their fans turned up in great numbers, but it wasn’t the day out they all dreamed it would be.
So, full focus is now back on the Premier League and trying to finish in the top five.
Meanwhile, Brentford still have a slim chance of making it into the Europa Conference League.
Thomas Frank‘s men need to win all of their remaining games and hope the sides above them slip up.
Why is Nottingham Forest vs Brentford on Thursday?
This match was meant to take place on Saturday, April 26 at 3pm.
Of course, due to Forest‘s participation in the FA Cup semi-final, it was rearranged.
But unlike City, who played their rearranged fixture last week, it was moved to the following midweek.
Kick-off has been changed to 7:30pm at the City Ground.
talkSPORT 2 will have live coverage of the match, with Adam Bridge providing commentary alongside Liverpool Women’s striker Courtney Sweetman-Kirk.
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- Nottingham Forest’s 2-0 win against Brentford in the reverse fixture ended a six-game winless run against the Bees in the league (D3 L3), with 2019-20 the last time they completed the league double against them.
- After winning four consecutive away league games against Nottingham Forest between 2014 and 2018, Brentford have won just one of their last five at the City Ground (D2 L2).
- Nottingham Forest’s 1-0 defeat against Everton in their last home game ended a nine-game unbeaten run at the City Ground in the Premier League (W7 D2). They’ve not lost consecutive home league games since their final two last season (vs Man City and Chelsea).
Nottingham Forest vs Brentford: Team news
The hosts will hope that Ola Aina is available to feature.
The defender is being assessed day-by-day, but his return would be a big boost.
Eric Moreira also remains on the sidelines.
Meanwhile, Brentford are without a number of players due to long-term injuries.
Aaron Hickey, Igor Thiago, Josh Dasilva and Fabio Carvalho are all out.
- Brentford are unbeaten in their last three league games (W1 D2), but are yet to go four without defeat this season, last doing so in April 2024 (run of 5).
- Brentford are winless in all 10 of their midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) Premier League matches since the start of last season (D3 L7), while they’ve also lost their only previous Thursday game in the competition (0-2 v Tottenham, December 2021).
- Brentford have the highest shot conversion rate of any side in the Premier League this season (14.8%). However, Nottingham Forest have the lowest conversion rate against them in the competition this term (8.3%).
Nottingham Forest vs Brentford: What has been said?
With the FA Cup dream over, Nuno is expecting his side to give everything to get into the Champions League.
He said: “First of all, we have to realise that we are in a fight that no one expected, us included, and it’s normal, but I don’t want to prove nobody wrong.
“It’s about us. We have a big desire to compete and the players enjoy. We are in the mix against big teams and that can only make us proud.
“We embrace the challenge. We are ahead of a big week for us, we’re going to Wembley to compete against a big team and there are a lot of games ahead of us. As long as we keep this approach, competing well, you never know.”
- Only Southampton (182) and Fulham (181) have forced fewer high turnovers than Nottingham Forest in the Premier League this season (201). Despite this, Forest rank second for goals scored from high turnovers this term (9) behind only Liverpool (10).
- Chris Wood has scored 19 goals for Nottingham Forest in the Premier League this season – the only player to score 20 in a campaign for the club is Stan Collymore (22 in 1994-95).
- Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa have both scored in the same Premier League match 18 times, with only seven different pairs of players doing so more for a side in the competition’s history. Seven of those 18 have been this season – the last time a pair did so more times in one campaign was in 2021-22, when Harry Kane and Son Heung-min scored in the same match eight times for Tottenham, and Sadio Mané and Mo Salah 10 times for Liverpool.
- Nottingham Forest’s Chris Wood has the highest shot conversion rate in the Premier League this season (min. 10 shots), netting 19 of his 54 attempts so far (35.2%). Indeed, it’s the highest conversion rate on record (since 2003-04) for any player with at least 50 shots in a single campaign.
