For Richer, for Poorer – This Is the Premier League’s Ultimate Mismatch

Brentford vs Manchester City

So, you’re Brentford, the club with one of the smallest budgets in the Premier League.

You’ve also got the smallest ground in the league which you are competing in for the first time in your history – in fact, in the top flight for the first time in 74 years.

On top of all of that, your already small squad has been hit by a luckless run of injuries.

Next up are the champions of England, Manchester City, the richest club in England and possibly the world, and one whose substitutes bench is stronger than most other first teams in the entire league.

Oh yes, and a team which has just netted 17 goals in its last three league games.

So much then for a season of goodwill to all men.

The comparison between these two is incomparable and the task facing Brentford as Manchester City come to town could not be clearer.

Talking Points

Let us start with Brentford.

Until Boxing Day, they had gone more than two weeks since their last league fixture following a Covid outbreak.

Their return to action, a 2-0 loss at Brighton, hardly means their worries have gone away, given they have injuries galore.

Overall, their current thread-bare personnel should not detract from what they have achieved in the first half of the campaign.

In fact, Thomas Frank’s side are well on course to achieve their objective for this season, under a manager who has done a fantastic job with a paper-thin squad, comfortably going toe-to-toe with top coaches, switching tactics when required and not afraid to take a risk.

To take any points off City, however, would provide arguably their greatest collection of Premier League 2021 highlights to date.

For this is a City side which has a six points lead at the top of the table and has just held off an unlikely Leicester comeback to clinch a ninth successive Premier League win.

It looked like the defending champions had wrapped up the points after only 25 minutes as they led a depleted Foxes side 4-0, with a penalty apiece by Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling on top of strikes by Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan.

Yet what had started out as a walk in the park will be remembered as a much sterner test for the league leaders as a wobble saw Leicester fight back to within a goal before Aymeric Laporte nodded home a fifth and Sterling fired in the sixth in a 6-3 Boxing Day bonanza.

Boss Pep Guardiola will presumably not countenance such complacency and such a wobble again which makes the task facing Brentford even harder.

History

Only 13 times in history have these sides met – and not in the top flight since 1937 (on that occasion, a 2-1 Brentford success in the former Division One).

They’ve not actually met in the league for 70 years – March 1951 to be precise in the then Division Two – when Brentford were 2-0 winners.

Four cup meetings have since followed, including three in the calendar year of 1989.

In January 1989, the Bees were 3-1 victors over City in the fourth round of the FA Cup, a triumph they matched in the League Cup in September 89, although City won the second round second leg and, with it, the two legged-tie 5-3 on aggregate.

Their most recent meeting was in 1997 in the FA Cup third round when Nicky Summerbee netted the only goal in a 1-0 City win.

Overall, City have seven triumphs, Brentford five victories and there has been one draw in their clashes.

Betting Tip

	Brentford vs Manchester City	Total Goals 2-3 @ 2.14
	December 30, 04:15 (GMT+8)

The SBOTOP Premier League 2021 betting odds are as one-sided as you would expect.

City can be backed 1X2 @ 1.18 and Asian Handicap – 2.25 @ 2.16.

By contrast, a Bees shock is on offer 1X2 @ 14.00 and Asian Handicap + 1.75 @ 2.33.

The draw will pay out @ 6.80, while the chances of a low scoring affair seem equally unlikely, given the odds of total goal 0-1 @ 5.00 and under 3.25 goals @ 1.80.

I have looked closely at a few options here, including First Half Asian Handicap City -0.75 @ 1.80, -1.00 @ 2.35, as well as a rare special of Total Corners Man City -5.50 @ 1.92.

The prospect of Brentford holding City until the break before the champions emerge victorious also caught my eye as Half Time Full Time Draw Away will earn a pay day of @ 3.65.

In the end, however, I have opted for a three-star prediction of 2-3 total goals.

 

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