Brentford face Aston Villa at Villa Park in the Premier League on Sunday (2pm kick-off GMT, live on Sky Sports).
The Bees have already beaten Unai Emery's side twice this season - once in the league and once in the cup - but, since then, the Villans have climbed up the table and are now just four points off the top of the league.
Analysis, team news, match officials and more. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the game.
Pre-match Analysis
Stephen Gillett, Playmaker Stats: Brentford may need to rethink approach against a Villa side capable of scoring from range
Brentford are renowned for playing the percentages - but the Bees may need to tweak that blueprint this Sunday against high-flying Aston Villa.
Keith Andrews’ men travel to Villa Park to take on Unai Emery’s Villans, third in the table and just four points shy of leaders Arsenal, who have found their shooting boots after a slow start to the season.
The Midlanders made a seriously shaky opening to the 2025/26 campaign, notably becoming only the fifth side in Premier League history not to score in their opening four league games - after Sheffield Wednesday (1993/94), Newcastle United (2005/06), Swansea City (2011/12) and Crystal Palace (2017/18).
Emery’s side have since clicked into gear and will be gunning for revenge against the Bees, who beat Villa 1-0 on the second matchweek of the season before dumping them out of the Carabao Cup on penalties in September.
Brentford may have bested their opponents twice already this term, but Villa are a different beast now - and their unparalleled ability to score from long range may require the Bees to rethink their approach.
Emiliano Buendía’s gorgeous knuckleball from outside the box in the Villans’ 2-0 win at Newcastle last weekend was merely the latest in a growing catalogue of spectacular long-range goals this season.
13 may be unlucky for some… but not Villa, who have scored a baker’s dozen from outside the box in the Premier League this season - two more than any other side across UEFA’s top five leagues.
And here’s the rub from a Brentford perspective: the Bees actually invite shots from outside the box.
Since their promotion to the top flight in 2020/21, Brentford have focused on maximising the quality of the chances they create and minimising the calibre of opportunities they concede.
The Bees have sought to superpower set-pieces, target opponents’ six-yard boxes and shoot centrally in attack - while, defensively, they have packed their own 18-yard box and encouraged teams to take on low-probability efforts from range. This season, 37 per cent of the shots Brentford have faced have been from outside the box, a higher percentage than any other team in the top flight. That approach usually pays dividends - but Villa’s current form challenges that logic.
Buendía (five goals) and former Bee Ollie Watkins (eight) carry obvious goal threats for Villa, but their standout performer this season - and the most productive English player in the Premier League - has been Morgan Rogers.
Now a key part of Thomas Tuchel’s plans at international level, Rogers won the PFA Young Player of the Year award last term and has kicked on impressively. With 12 goal involvements (seven goals and five assists) in 2025/26, the 23-year-old is Villa’s most productive player and has typified their ability to confound the expected goals metric.
The former Manchester City academy graduate’s league strikes this season include three efforts from distance, as well as a match-winning double that oozed quality in Villa’s 2-1 win over Manchester United in December. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that Rogers’ seven goals have come from less than 4xG.
A gripping contest looks to be in store - and both sides will need to time their challenges carefully.
Only La Liga giants Real Madrid (10) have been awarded more penalties than Brentford (seven) this season across UEFA’s big five leagues, while Villa have drawn more free-kicks (308) than any team in the Premier League.
Remarkably, given they win an average of 13.4 fouls per game, Villa are one of only two Premier League sides - Tottenham the other - yet to be awarded a penalty this season, and Brentford will want to keep it that way on Sunday.
Scout Report
Dan Long, Sky Sports: Aston Villa's chance of winning the Premier League assessed
Finishing last season with eight Premier League wins from 10 suggested there was every reason to believe another hugely exciting campaign would lie ahead in 2025/26 for Aston Villa.
That has, ultimately, proved to be the case, but it didn’t start that way - the Villans were in the relegation zone for most of September, having failed to win any of their first five league games for the first time since 1970.
In the first four of those, they failed to score. That long-awaited first goal was scored by Matty Cash in a 1-1 draw with Sunderland, but by that point, they had only hit 12 shots on target in all, which was the lowest figure in the division.
“We have to recover our identity. Of course, we have to try to recover our personality, confidence and personality to play,” Emery said afterwards. “I am frustrated with how we played, how we are not feeling comfortable with our style.”
Whether or not directly linked to the Spaniard publicly airing his grievances, the run of form since will have been beyond the realms of what he or the Villa fans thought possible.
In all competitions from and including the 1-0 win over Bologna in the Europa League on 25 September, they have played 26 games and won 21 of those.
At home in the Premier League, they have taken 24 of the last 27 points on offer; on the road, it is 20 from the last 27. Had Emi Buendía not missed a late penalty away at Go Ahead Eagles back in October, they would have been sitting above Lyon at the top of the Europa League league phase table before their final game against RB Salzburg.
The record is quite astonishing, to say the least.
There has also been no shortage of goals: Ollie Watkins, Morgan Rogers, Buendía, John McGinn and Donyell Malen - who has since joined Roma on loan - have scored 35 between them, yet no one player has scored more than eight in all competitions.
Before the first meeting with Brentford back in August, Villa were priced at 4/1 to finish in the top four. That has now shortened to 2/9. They are 9/2 to finish in the top two for the first time since the very first Premier League season back in 1992/93 - and even priced at 16/1 to win the league, which is not beyond the realms of possibility, given they trail leaders Arsenal by only four points.
In the Dugout
Unai Emery
Having taken charge of more than 1,000 matches over the last 21 years, Unai Emery is one of the most experienced managers currently working in the Premier League.
After a career as a midfielder, mostly playing in the second tier of Spanish football, the Spaniard had a pretty quick transition into management, having suffered a serious knee injury in his early 30s.
He helped the now-defunct Lorca Deportiva to promotion in 2004/05 and got Almería into La Liga for the first time in 2006/07, before an incredible eighth-place finish the following campaign.
In 2008, his exploits saw him move on to Valencia, whom he guided to three straight third-place finishes from 2010 to 2012, before a forgettable six-month spell in Russia with Spartak Moscow. He returned to Spain in January 2013 and guided Sevilla to three successive Europa League titles.
Two years and seven trophies with Paris Saint-Germain followed, with Emery then trusted by the Arsenal board to become the successor to Arsene Wenger, which was, to an extent, a poisoned chalice. The Europa League king guided the Gunners to the final in 2019, where they were beaten by Chelsea in Azerbaijan, but he was unable to help them finish higher than fifth for the first time in four seasons.
He was dismissed after 18 months in November 2019 and appointed by Villarreal in July 2020, with - you’ve guessed it - a fourth Europa League triumph 10 months later, by way of a penalty shoot-out win over Manchester United in Gdansk, Poland.
Emery turned down an approach by Newcastle United in November 2021, but came back to England to replace Steven Gerrard at Villa Park in October 2022.
The 54-year-old - under contract until the summer of 2029 - is Villa’s longest-serving manager since Martin O’Neill, who left after four years in August 2010, and is approaching 200 games in charge.
The Gameplan
With Patrick Rowe, Sky Sports
Patrick Rowe, Sky Sports football journalist and Aston Villa fan, has explained how Emery is likely to set up for Sunday's Premier League clash at Villa Park.
"It will be business as usual from Emery, I think," Patrick told brentfordfc.com earlier this week. "It is a 4-4-2 with Morgan Rogers playing in a free role off Ollie Watkins.
"There could be some curveballs in terms of team selection due to injuries, though. The absence of Tielemans, McGinn and Kamara will mean Onana and Lamara Bogarde will likely feature in midfield. Both are decent players, but neither possesses the passing ability of Tielemans or the defensive support of Kamara.
"McGinn predominantly played on the right, so that has opened the door for Jadon Sancho. He scored his first goal for the club against Fenerbahce, and that could really kickstart his time here in the second half of the season. If he is up for it, he is dangerous."
Last Premier League starting XI v Newcastle United (4-2-3-1): Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Torres, Maatsen; Onana, Torres; Sancho, Rogers, Buendía; Watkins
Match Officials
Robinson to referee first Brentford game of the season
Referee: Tim Robinson
Assistants: Ian Hussin and Tim Wood
Fourth official: Tom Kirk
VAR: Paul Tierney
Tim Robinson officiated his first Premier League match in December 2019: Burnley’s 1-0 victory over Newcastle United.
This season, he has refereed 12 games, dishing out 57 yellow cards and one red. 11 of those cards came in Sunderland's 3-2 win over Bournemouth earlier this term.
Robinson's last Brentford match was at the end of the 2024/25 campaign, when the Bees beat Brighton 4-2 at Gtech Community Stadium, which saw João Pedro sent off for the visitors.
Last Premier League Meeting
Brentford 1 Aston Villa 0 (Premier League, 23 August 2025)
Dango Ouattara's debut goal earned Brentford a 1-0 win against Aston Villa in the Bees' first home game of the 2025/26 Premier League season.
The 23-year-old forward's 12th-minute finish was the difference as Keith Andrews' side secured their first victory of the campaign at Gtech Community Stadium.
When Caoimhím Kelleher found Igor Thiago on halfway with a lofted pass, the Brazilian flicked the ball on to put Ouattara through on goal.
The former Bournemouth man raced into the box and saw his stabbed effort saved by Emiliano Martínez, but the ball ricocheted back into his path, and he held his nerve to pass into an empty net.