Match Preview: Ipswich Town v Brentford | OneFootball

Brentford are seeking a fourth-successive Premier League victory when they face Ipswich Town at Portman Road on Saturday (3pm kick-off GMT).

The west Londoners travel to Suffolk buoyed by wins over Brighton, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United while Kieran McKenna's Tractor Boys came back from 2-0 down to pick up a point against Everton at Goodison Park last time out.

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

Pre-match Analysis

Richard Cole, Playmaker Stats: Brentford must deal with Delap

Although all the promoted teams have gone straight back down, Kieran McKenna's Ipswich Town have been the best performing attacking side of the three.

The Tractor Boys have scored 35 goals, just one fewer than Everton and more than Leicester City (29) and Southampton (25).

While Ipswich have nothing to play for but pride, every remaining game for them is a free hit and an opportunity for players to put themselves in the shop window should they wish to stay in the Premier League next season.

One man who has reportedly attracted significant interest is Liam Delap. The former Manchester City youth product has 12 goals for his club in the league this season, a tally that only 11 players – all of whom are playing for a team outside of the drop zone – have beaten.

Four of Delap's goals have come from Ipswich counter attacks, with only one player in the league scoring more goals on the break – Premier League winner Mohamed Salah with seven.

Indeed, Delap was one of the scorers for Ipswich in the epic 4-3 win for Brentford back in October at the Gtech, a game in which Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo both bagged braces.

Another threat that Brentford will have to be wary of is Julio Enciso, on loan from Brighton. Since the last international break, the Paraguayan has two goals and two assists in six games for his side, including a goal against Everton in the 2-2 draw last time out.

At the back, Dara O'Shea ranks highly in defensive stats this season. The Republic of Ireland international has made 59 blocks (ranking him sixth), won 103 aerial duels (fifth), and made 204 clearances in total (fourth).

Ipswich haven't been helped by long-term injuries to key squad members this year and also due to picking up too many suspensions. Another important player, Leif Davis, is still out after his straight red card for a challenge on Bukayo Saka in the defeat to Arsenal last month.

In fact, Ipswich have the player who has committed the joint-most fouls in the league (the aforementioned Delap, 67 fouls) and are the team that has conceded six penalties (fourth highest), picked up the third highest number of yellow cards (89), and along with Arsenal, have the most sendings off (five).

One of those red cards also came against Brentford when Harry Clarke, now on loan at Sheffield United, received a second yellow card in the 69th minute.

Meanwhile, Brentford's forward line will know that pressure on the Ipswich defence is likely to be rewarded against a team that have made 36 errors leading to opposition shots in the league.

The Bees have been in great goalscoring form recently and they will face a team that has shipped 76 in total this season.

The London club have bagged 10 goals in their last three games (all wins) and Thomas Frank will hope there is more to come from his side this weekend.

Scout Report

Dan Long, Sky Sports: Positivity remains at Portman Road despite Ipswich's immediate return to the Championship

Ipswich were relegated back to the Championship after a 3-0 defeat to Newcastle on 26 April. Their return to the Premier League for the first time since 2001/02 was a brief one, ended with four games to spare. They came up with Leicester and Southampton and will return with them in 2025/26.

The fact, for the second season running, the three promoted teams have gone on to become the three relegated has naturally sparked the debate about the gulf in class between the top flight and the second tier. But, arguably, Ipswich were never expected to be in this position yet anyway.

15 largely fruitless seasons in the Championship came to an end in 2019, and they were floundering in League One until Kieran McKenna took over in December 2021.

In McKenna's first full season, Ipswich finished second, as they did in the Championship last term, securing automatic promotion with a six-point cushion between themselves and Leeds.

With the majority of the same squad still on board, the momentum just built and built and built and helped realise the dream of a Premier League return. When they got there, despite spending in excess of £100 million to bolster the squad to attempt consolidation, it remained.

In nine of their 19 games in the first half of the season, they took the lead, with this unknown entity often surprising opponents. They closed the year - and that run - with a brilliant 2-0 win at home to Chelsea. In the other eight, however, they only managed to hold on to win twice and draw another two.

Since then, the Tractor Boys have been on something of a downward spiral, in terms of results. Injuries haven’t helped: Chiedozie Ogbene has been out since November, Wes Burns and Sammie Szmodics since February.

There have been some highlights: holding Aston Villa to a 1-1 draw with 10 men in February; giving Manchester United a scare at Old Trafford 11 days later; beating Bournemouth in April; and racing into a 2-0 lead against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Moments the fans have longed for for decades.

The form of Liam Delap has been scintillating, too. The England Under-21 international has scored 12 goals in his first full season in the division and proved to be more than a handful for centre-backs up and down the country.

As Stuart Watson, chief football writer for the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star told us, much of the club’s recruitment was done with an eye on the possibility of returning to the Championship straightaway.

And, overall, it doesn’t seem as though there is half as much negativity surrounding Ipswich’s relegation compared to that of Leicester and Southampton.

That is seemingly the mood within the camp too, with McKenna looking at the positives when he spoke after their drop was confirmed.

"We're in a much better position than the club has been over previous years,” he said. “The journey has been a fantastic one that sets us up well.

“The club is in a really strong position. There's still a fantastic togetherness there. It's a step back now but that's often the way in terms of taking steps forward."

All those of an Ipswich persuasion will be willing that sentiment to come true – and for the wait for a return to be far shorter than 22 years this time around.

In the Dugout

Kieran McKenna

London-born Kieran McKenna was raised in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, but returned to the English capital in 2002, when he joined Tottenham as a 16-year-old.

A midfielder by trade, he played for Northern Ireland at U19 and U21 level, but a persistent hip injury sadly prevented him from ever making a senior appearance - at either club or international level - and led to his premature retirement aged 22 in 2009.

Having studied for his A-Levels while at Spurs, McKenna applied to study sport and exercise science at Loughborough University and graduated in 2012. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Tottenham as head of academy performance analysis, before later taking charge of the club’s U18s.

In the summer of 2016, he joined Manchester United in the same capacity and, in the 2017/18 campaign, won the Premier League Northern Division title, before being picked – alongside Michael Carrick - to work as assistant to José Mourinho in the first team.

After the Portuguese left Old Trafford, McKenna worked under Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Ralf Rangnick.

McKenna was just 35 when he was appointed Ipswich boss in December 2021 and, almost four years and two promotions later, is on the way to becoming only the eighth manager in the club’s history to reach 200 games in charge.

The Gameplan

With Stuart Watson, East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star

Stuart Watson, chief football writer for the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star, explains how Kieran McKenna is likely to set up his Ipswich side on Saturday.

"It has flexed over the course of the season," said Watson.

"Kieran McKenna is a 4-2-3-1 man, albeit with a fair bit of nuance to that. Leif Davis covers the entire left side, so the left winger tends to tuck right in and play almost as an extra no.10.

"Normally the right winger stays high and right and there is almost a bit of a cheat code really, but they have been robbed of those options on the right this season.

"As the season has gone on, and they suffered a few heavy defeats around the turn of the year, it has become more pragmatic and it has looked more like a back three or back five at times, just to try and stay in games and nick things on the counter attack.

"It did go back to more of a 4-2-3-1 at Goodison Park last weekend and I think now, with nothing to play for, there is probably a little bit of planning for next season, getting back to trying to be the front-foot team that got them their success in the Championship.

"They have got a few more attacking options back now, a couple of players came back from injury last weekend, so I would imagine back at Portman Road, where they have not had an awful amount of joy this season, it will be more of that 4-2-3-1, with four proper out-and-out attackers."

Last Premier League starting XI v Everton (4-2-3-1): Palmer; O’Shea, Woolfenden, Burgess, Greaves; Morsy, Taylor; Hutchinson, Chaplin, Enciso; Delap

Read our full interview with Stuart Watson here

Match Officials

Fourth Bees game for Barrott

Referee: Sam Barrott

Assistants: Wade Smith and Mark Scholes

Fourth official: Dean Whitestone

Video assistant referee: Jarred Gillett

Samuel Barrott will referee a fourth Brentford game of the season when he takes charge of Saturday's match at Portman Road.

The Yorkshire-born official had the whistle for the Bees' 2024/25 opener against Crystal Palace at Gtech Community Stadium and was also the man in the middle for the west Londoners' trips to Manchester United in the Premier League and Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup.

Barrott has dished out 113 yellow cards and one red card across the 25 games he has refereed in all competitions this campaign.

Last Meeting

Brentford 4 Ipswich 3 (Premier League, 26 October 2024)

Bryan Mbeumo scored a 96th-minute winner as Brentford defeated Ipswich in a seven-goal thriller at Gtech Community Stadium.

Liam Delap had looked to have snatched a point for the 10-man Tractor Boys late on but Mbeumo's cross evaded everyone inside a crowded penalty area and nestled in the corner to secure a dramatic victory.

Goals from Sammie Szmodics and George Hirst saw the visitors move into a two-goal lead midway through the first half before a quick-fire Yoane Wissa brace ensured the sides went into the break level.

Mbeumo turned the game around from the penalty spot following a foul from Harry Clarke, who was later sent off, before the late drama ensued at the Gtech.