Brentford v West Ham United
Gtech Community Stadium, Premier League, Saturday 4 November, 3pm GMT
A return to Premier League action sees West Ham United travel across London to face Brentford on Saturday.
David Moyes’ Hammers will make the short trip around the M25 to face the Bees on Saturday 4 November, with kick-off set for 3pm.
Just one point separates the Irons and Brentford in the Premier League table. West Ham sit ninth in the league, and sit on 14 points from ten matches played, while Thomas Frank’s Brentford are tenth on 13 points.
Tickets…
Supporters are advised that West Ham United's allocation of 1,725 tickets sold out to Bondholders and Season Ticket Holders with 36+ Loyalty Points.
Travel…
Brentford's Gtech Community Stadium is well served by public transport, with a number of railway and Underground stations within walking distance.
The nearest station is Kew Bridge, which is in Zone 3 on the South Western Railway line from London Waterloo and Clapham Junction. An alternative route is via Gunnersbury, which is a ten-minute walk east of the stadium and is served by the London Underground District line and London Overground.
There are other nearby London Underground stations within a 20-minute walk - Chiswick Park (District line), Acton Town (District and Piccadilly lines) and South Ealing (Piccadilly line).
How To Follow…
Saturday's 3pm kick-off will NOT be broadcast live in the UK, but will be shown across the world by the Premier League's international broadcast partners.
You can follow the action via our live blog on whufc.com and our app and across our social media channels. We will also have highlights and exclusive reaction for you after the final whistle.
Team News…
West Ham United will be without midfield duo Edson Álvarez and Lucas Paquetá for the trip to Brentford. Both are suspended after picking up their fifth yellow cards, respectively, in the home Premier League match with Everton last Sunday.
The hosts, meanwhile, will be hoping that Keane Lewis-Potter and Mikkel Damsgaard can recover from short-term knocks in time to feature on Saturday.
West Ham United’s visit to the Gtech Community Stadium will almost certainly come too soon for Shandon Baptiste and Joshua Dasilva, while Kevin Schade (groin) and Rico Henry (knee) are long-term injury absentees for Brentford.
Striker Ivan Toney also remains unavailable due to suspension, but Aaron Hickey can return to the matchday squad after serving a one-game ban of his own last weekend.
Opposition…
For a club that spent so long outside the top tier of English football, Brentford have made the Premier League look like a walk in the park.
The Bees ended a 64-year absence from the top flight in the 2020/21 season and have thoroughly enjoyed their run in the Premier League since. Not that anyone should be surprised, given their form has been a continuation of an impressive rise that began just ten years ago.
When you take a step back and realise promotion from EFL League One came just under a decade ago, their rise through the English football pyramid has been nothing short of remarkable. The club followed promotion under Mark Warburton in 2013 with seven Championship campaigns, where the Bees never finished lower than eleventh.
Having narrowly missed out in the previous season via a Play-off final defeat by Fulham in 2020, Brentford were promoted to the top flight a year later. A Wembley win over Swansea City fired them to the Premier League for the first time and they have hardly looked back since.
A 13th-placed finish in their debut Premier League campaign - the 2021/22 season impressed fans and pundits alike. Thomas Frank's side improved again last year, securing ninth in the Premier League in the 2022/23 season.
The success on the field tells half the story of the revolutionary work that has taken place in west London over the past ten years. While in the Championship, Brentford became one of the first sides to use data as their main tool for player recruitment and scouting. What followed, though, was even more radical– the club closing its Academy and setting up a B Team.
Instead of an Academy, Brentford has invested in a vast scouting network. Rather than look at wins and losses the club has embraced Key Performance Metrics (KPMs) to determine player and club performance. By using this method, Brentford have been able to scout players who were undervalued in terms of their price point when purchased. In effect, spotting talent before anyone else did.
The summer transfer window saw Brentford reinvest some of those sums. Centre-back Nathan Collins joined from Wolverhampton Wanderers, while Kevin Schade made his move to west London permanent from SC Freiburg. Goalkeeper Mark Flekken also joined Franks' side from the Bundesliga club in a busy window for the Bees.
Unbeaten in their opening four Premier League matches of the campaign, Brentford would then lose three of the following four, but of the defeats to Newcastle United, Everton and Manchester United, only the home loss to the Toffees was by more than one goal.
Their most recent Premier League matches, a 3-0 win over Burnley followed by a 2-0 victory away to Chelsea, show that Brentford can compete with the Premier League's very best and will continue to do so.
Previous Meetings…
This will be just our fifth visit to Gtech Community Stadium, and fourth for a competitive fixture.
West Ham United have yet to win a Premier League match at Brentford, losing 2-0 in each of the previous two seasons.
However, prior to that, former Bee Saïd Benrahma scored two winners to secure a pre-season victory in July 2021 and FA Cup third-round success in January this year.
The Gtech is the fifth different Brentford home West Ham have visited, following Shotters Field, Cross Roads, York Road and Griffin Park, which the Bees vacated in August 2020.
Prior to Brentford's promotion to the Premier League for the 2020/21 season, the last time the two teams met was in the 1992/93 Division 1 campaign. A 4-0 win over the Bees in April 1993 saw current first-team coach Mark Robson and Academy coaches Steve Potts and Kevin Keen involved in the starting XI.
You have to go back to 1954 for the last time the two sides faced each other prior to the creation of the Premier League.
Match Officials…
Referee: Thomas Bramall
Assistant Referees: Simon Bennett & Mark Scholes
Fourth Official: John Busby
VAR: Michael Salisbury
Assistant VAR: Derek Eaton
Thomas Bramall has been named as the referee for West Ham United's Premier League visit to Brentford on Saturday.
Bramall has been a professional referee since the 2018/19 season and was promoted to Select Group One in 2022, taking charge of his first Premier League match in August 2022; Fulham's home match against Brighton & Hove Albion.
He has since officiated ten Premier League fixtures, including Liverpool's 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth in August and Newcastle's 2-0 home victory against Burnley in September, and was the fourth official for the Hammers' trip to Aston Villa two weeks ago.
Bramall also took charge of the 2022 FA Trophy final between Wrexham and Bromley, which Bromley won 1-0.
Click through here for more information about this weekend’s match officials.
