Nottingham Forest vs Brentford prediction: Chris Wood to net in vital Forest win? | OneFootball

Nottingham Forest can move back up to third in the Premier League table on Thursday when they face Brentford at the City Ground, in their game in hand.

They slipped to sixth at the weekend, as they were in FA Cup action, and Chelsea and Newcastle both took advantage with wins over Everton and Ipswich, respectively.

With just four games to play after this one, the pressure is mounting on Nuno Espirito Santo’s side to stay in the Champions League places and they know they can barely afford to slip up between now and the end of the season if they want to be back among Europe’s elite next season.

The Club won the European Cup under the late, great Brian Clough in 1978-79 and 1979-80, beating Malmo and Hamburg both 1-0 in the respective finals.

This season has been quite a turnaround after Forest finished just one place and six points above the relegation zone with 32 points last season. They already have 60 points this time around with five games of the season left.

Brentford sit 14 points and five places below Forest in the league table and it’s fair to say it’s been a mixed season for Thomas Frank.

They won seven of their first eight home matches, but after losing 2-0 to Forest on 21 December, they went seven games without a win at the GTech, finally ending that run on Saturday when they beat Brighton 4-2.

Their form away has been mixed as well, but they have won five of their last seven on their travels, a run which includes victories over Bournemouth, West Ham and Crystal Palace.

Football betting sites are all backing Forest for the win at 6/5, but you can get 23/10 on a Bees win and 5/2 on a draw.

Forest’s 2-0 win against Brentford in the reverse fixture ended a six-game winless run against the Bees in the league, with three draws and three defeats, but they did complete the league double against them during the 2019-20 season when the teams were in the Championship.

After winning four consecutive away league games at the City Ground between 2014 and 2018, the Bees have won just one of their last five there, drawing two and losing the other two.

Forest have been in a rich vein of form at home, going nine games unbeaten, with seven wins and two draws before losing to Everton earlier this month, when Abdoulaye Doucoure scored the only goal of the game in added time. They’ve not lost consecutive home league games since their final two of last season against Manchester City and Chelsea.

Frank’s side are unbeaten in their last three league games, with one win and two draws, but they are yet to go four without defeat this season, last doing so in April 2024. But they have scored in their last seven away games, including five at Southampton and four at Leicester, so both teams to score is a pretty good bet in this one.

Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa have both scored in the same Premier League match 18 times, with only seven different pairs of players doing so more for a side in the competition’s history.

Seven of those 18 have been this season and the last time a pair did so more times in one campaign was in 2021-22, when Harry Kane and Son Heung-min scored in the same match eight times for Tottenham, and Sadio Mané and Mo Salah 10 times for Liverpool.

Betting sites, including Betway, offer a range of specials, and they are offering 7/1 on both Wissa and Mbeumo to score, or you can get 19/4 on Chris Wood and Wissa to score.

The New Zealand international has scored 19 league goals for Nottingham Forest this season and the only player to score 20 in a campaign for the club is Stan Collymore, who bagged 22 back during the 94/95 season, so can Wood hit 20 on Thursday?

In total, he has 28 for club and country this season, including three hat-tricks and two braces, and you can get 9/2 on him scoring first or 15/2 on him bagging two or more.

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