Match Preview: Brentford v Fulham

Brentford host Fulham at Gtech Community Stadium on Sunday, with the west London derby their final home fixture of the Premier League season (3pm kick-off BST).

Both teams can still potentially qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League, but head into this game in differing form: the Bees have won their last four matches, while this weekend's opposition have lost four of their last five.

Analysis, team news, match officials and more. Here's everything you need to know ahead of a huge game in TW8.

Pre-match Analysis

Stephen Gillett, Playmaker Stats: Plenty at stake in crucial west London derby

Brentford host Fulham in their final home game of the season on Sunday and, interestingly, the west London rivals are each closing in on their highest-ever Premier League points tallies.

Marco Silva’s side need only one more win to break Fulham’s all-time Premier League points record (set in 2003/04, and equalled in 2008/09) of 53 points, while Thomas Frank's Bees need a win and a draw from their remaining two fixtures to match the 59 points they chalked up during the 2022/23 campaign.

European football next season remains a possibility for both teams, although Brentford - four points clear of the 11th-placed Cottagers - are currently in the box seat for the extra UEFA Europa Conference League spot that will be awarded to the Premier League should Manchester City defeat Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final.

There's plenty at stake, therefore, and the stats suggest that a topsy-turvy encounter could be on the cards.

Fulham looked on course for victory last weekend against Everton, after Raúl Jiménez's thumping header put them in front at Craven Cottage, but the Toffees equalised via a somewhat fortunate deflected strike from Vitalii Mykolenko on the stroke of half-time and then powered to a 3-1 victory after the break.

The Cottagers have now dropped 28 points from losing positions this term, a figure only matched by relegated Southampton in the Premier League in 2024/25.

Brentford can probably relate to Fulham's frustrations given that the Bees dropped 30 points - the most in the division - from leading positions in 2023/24, and while the Bees have improved in this regard this season, Frank's side have still lost five games in which they have led during the current campaign.

On the flip side of that coin, however, both Brentford and Fulham have proved to be two of the most resilient sides in the Premier League this term.

Only Liverpool (22), Man City (20) and Newcastle (19) have won more points from losing positions than Fulham (18) going into Sunday's clash and Brentford (17) are right behind them.

What is also clear regarding Fulham's season so far is that it has been a collective effort - and the Cottagers currently boast the most prolific bench in the Premier League.

With Brazilian gamechanger Rodrigo Muniz leading the way with six goals off the bench, Fulham have scored a whopping 15 (29 per cent) of their 51 league goals via substitutes this season and Marco Silva's side have carried a huge attacking threat late in games - only Bournemouth (18) scoring more Premier League goals after 75 minutes than the Cottagers (17).

Fulham may finish strong, but Brentford have earned renown for their fast starts this season and only Liverpool (38), Man City (38) and Newcastle (37) have scored more top-flight goals before half-time than the Bees (32) this term.

Fast starts, fluctuating scorelines, game-changing subs and buckets of late goals... Sunday has all the potential ingredients you could wish for if you were planning to whip up a belting west London derby!

Scout Report

Dan Long, Sky Sports: Patchy run of results leaves Fulham with mountain to climb in European chase

Many thought Fulham would struggle when Aleksandar Mitrović - the club’s seventh-highest goalscorer of all time - left for Saudi Arabia in August 2023, but they coped without him.

And there were similar conversations last summer, when João Palhinha finally left for Bayern Munich, 11 months after his initial move to the Bundesliga giants had broken down when the Whites were unable to secure a suitable successor for the midfielder.

Once again, they found a way to make it work once their star man had departed.

Marco Silva’s side picked up 12 points from their first nine Premier League games, then ended a three-match winless run with a dramatic victory over Brentford in the west London derby on 4 November.

“Tonight had been our season so far: dominant, the best team on the pitch, creating many more chances. But the reality is we didn’t get the points we deserved from the games,” he said afterwards. “Sometimes football takes from you, but in the end, it gives to you if you keep working hard.”

Following that up with a 2-0 win at Crystal Palace put them seventh for the November international break and, off the back of an unbeaten December - comprising two wins and five draws - on New Year’s Day, Fulham occupied eighth spot, just six points behind Chelsea in fourth.

Two Raúl Jiménez penalties salvaged a 2-2 draw at home to Ipswich in their first game of 2025 to extend their unbeaten run to eight, but Silva responded afterwards to talk of finishing in a European spot and urged realism.

“I prefer our team to speak on the pitch,” he said. “If you want to be fighting [for Europe], you have to be much more ruthless and aggressive.”

His side won three of the next five, a run that included victories over fellow European hopefuls Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, but a patchy run of results since late February has diminished hopes. And last Saturday’s 3-1 loss to Everton at Craven Cottage has left them with a mountain to climb.

Whether there is a Conference League spot up for grabs for the team that finishes eighth hinges on Manchester City beating Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final, but Fulham, in 11th, are four points behind Brentford, in eighth, anyway. “It felt like last chance saloon and they lost,” said Jack Kelly in Hot off the Press.

Depending on the result at Wembley, a west London derby win could take the battle down to the final day.

European qualification and a downturn in results aside, Fulham still have the chance to make 2024/25 one of their best Premier League seasons to date, statistically.

Five goals would better the 55 they scored in 2022/23 and 2024/25, while one win from the final two games would not only match their best of 15, set in 2022/23, but it would also set a new points record, which currently stands at 53, achieved under Roy Hodgson in 2008/09.

That season, they qualified for the Europa League. But even if they break that record in the final fortnight, it still might not be enough to do similar 16 years on.

In the Dugout

Marco Silva

Marco Silva passed 13 years in management in September and has now taken charge of almost 500 matches in Portugal, Greece and the UK.

After a playing career as a right-back in his home country, the Portuguese was appointed director of football at Estoril in 2011, but was quickly thrust into his first role as leading man when the club endured an unfavourable start to the campaign and Vinicius Eutrópio was sacked.

Silva managed to turn the club’s fortunes around, winning the Liga de Honra - Portugal’s second tier - and cementing a return to the Primeira Liga after a seven-year exile.

In 2014, Silva signed a four-year deal at Sporting CP and went on to win the Taça de Portugal – the Portuguese cup - but he lasted just over a year in charge.

Shortly after the cup win, the club produced a 400-page document where they detailed the reasoning for his dismissal, with one section claiming his failure to wear a club suit during a match partly justified the decision.

A title-winning season at Olympiacos came next, before he took on a fire-fighting job at relegation-threatened Hull in January 2017.

Silva galvanised a Tigers team that included Harry Maguire and Andy Robertson, but ultimately could not prevent the club dropping back into the Championship, and he resigned just under five months later.

That preceded time at Watford and Everton, before he joined Fulham as their new head coach in July 2021. He won the Championship title with the club in 2021/22, before guiding them to their first top-half Premier League finish since 2011/12 in 2022/23.

Silva reached 150 games in charge in October and is approaching four years in the job, making him the club’s longest-serving manager since Chris Coleman, who left in 2007. He is also currently the seventh-longest serving manager in the top four divisions of English football

The Gameplan

With Jack Kelly, Fulhamish podcast

Jack Kelly of the Fulhamish podcast explains how Marco Silva is likely to set up his side to face the Bees.

"It will be a 4-2-3-1, with one holding midfielder in Sander Berge, and one slightly more advanced in, I'm guessing, Saša Lukić, then one no.10 in Smith Rowe or Pereira," said Kelly.

"The two wide players will be maybe Iwobi, maybe Harry Wilson, maybe Sessegnon, maybe Adama Traoré, then one up top, which will probably be Raúl Jiménez, as Rodrigo Muniz is out for the season.

"They are trying to manage Antonee Robinson’s minutes right now, and he is playing every other game, so I think he will start on Sunday, if that is the plan.

"Kenny Tete will be at right-back, then Calvin Bassey and Joachim Andersen - two really strong defenders – at centre-back."

Last starting XI v Everton in the Premier League (4-2-3-1): Leno; Tete, Andersen, Bassey, Sessegnon; Pereira, Berge; Wilson, Smith Rowe, Iwobi; Jiménez

Read our full interview with Jack Kelly here

Match Officials

Gillett to return to the Gtech for third time this season

Referee: Jarred Gillett

Assistants: Ian Hussin and Sian Massey-Ellis

Fourth official: Farai Hallam

Video assistant referee: John Brooks

Born on the Gold Coast, Australia, highly rated A-League referee Jarred Gillett emigrated to England in 2019 to study at Liverpool John Moore’s University, specialising in research on children with Cerebral Palsy.

He went on to make his EFL officiating debut in April of that same year.

Gillett made history in September 2021 when he became the first overseas official to referee a Premier League match when he took charge of Watford v Newcastle United.

His last Brentford assignment was the Bees’ 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa in February.

Gillett has refereed 22 games this season, showing 86 yellow cards and one red.

Memorable Meeting

Brentford 3 Fulham 2 (Premier League, 6 March 2023)

Brentford edged a pulsating west London derby against Fulham to extend their unbeaten run in the Premier League to 12 games.

Ethan Pinnock and Manor Solomon traded goals at either end of the first half as the rivals went in level.

Ivan Toney restored the Bees’ advantage from the penalty spot early in the second half, with Mathias Jensen making the game safe seven minutes from time.

Carlos Vinicius netted a late consolation for Marco Silva’s side, but there would be no denying Brentford all three derby night points.