Analysis: Brentford's surprising xG numbers despite Newcastle defeat | OneFootball

Brentford exited the Carabao Cup following a 3-1 defeat to Newcastle United as the Magpies made the most of their chances.

The Bees weren't helped by two defensive injuries before and early into the quarter-final at St James' Park with Sepp van den Berg withdrawing in the warm-up and Ethan Pinnock being replaced early in the game due to a knock.

Those two absentees could have helped reduce Newcastle's overall threat with Eddie Howe's team having 23 shots in total during the game. However, a closer look at the stats suggests that the home team didn't have it all their own way going forward.

Sandro Tonali opened his brace with a fantastic low shot from distance early on in the game, which was one of seven Newcastle shots from outside the box.

Indeed, of those 23 efforts in total, only five hit the target: two from outside the box and three from inside the box.

The Italian's second goal and Newcastle's third both came from corners, something that is unusual for Brentford to concede considering the Bees have let just one Premier League goal in from set-pieces this season.

Mark Flekken couldn't do much about any of Newcastle's goals, the goalkeeper was only needed to make two saves throughout the game – the same as his opposite number Martin Dúbravka.

Flekken was helped by some solid blocking from his defence, as always. The Bees blocked 10 shots in total with Nathan Collins and Kristoffer Ajer doing particularly well to put themselves in the way, having both made three blocks each.

In a way, the defeat to Newcastle has some similarities to Brentford's 24/25 Premier League campaign: finding it harder on the road and their opponents having multiple attempts on goal (even though that doesn't necessarily mean a large number of clear-cut chances).

Brentford have faced 299 shots in the league this season – more than Leicester City (298) and bottom-of-the-league Southampton (297). However, those shots don't mean much when so many are from distance or are half-chances. Naturally, some more speculative efforts will eventually go in – like Tonali's early one – but the xG per shot for those is very low.

The opposition against Brentford are reduced to an average 0.1 xG per shot with only two teams better at restricting teams to lower-chance efforts: Arsenal and Nottingham Forest (0.09 xG/shot), which suggests Saturday's game against the latter could be a low-scoring affair.

While chances may be hard to come by against Forest this weekend, Yoane Wissa may be the one to help the Bees after scoring his 10th of the season with his late consolation strike against Newcastle on Wednesday night.

Wissa has taken just 16 games to hit double figures in all competitions this year – half the time it took him to do it in 2023/24 (32 games).

Now in his fourth season with Brentford, Wissa is averaging just under 10 strikes a season having netted 39 times for the west Londoners.

Should he continue this goalscoring form this campaign then goal number 40 shouldn't be far away.