Ipswich go into this game of the back of a 1-0 defeat at home to League Two Stevenage in the EFL Cup first round and are looking to bounce back with a victory over the Bees.

Preview

Despite sitting third in the table, the last game may have knocked the confidence out of some of the players ahead of this game, especially the senior players who were playing against Boro, notably Luke Chambers, Jonas Knudsen and Kevin Bru. Although, Ipswich are not the only team in this game with something to improve on.

Brentford have come into this game of the back of a 1-0 loss to Exeter on Tuesday night and a 2-1 loss at Huddersfield on the opening day. Brentford management, players and fans will be hoping for a good performance this weekend to kick-start their season, whilst Ipswich will look to repeat their actions from the opening day.

Dangerous Threat

Konstantin Kershbaumer

The 24-year old from Austria signed for Brentford last summer from Admira Wacker, and went on to record 30 appearances for them in the league, recording six assists. Not too shabby for a central midfielder.

A creative midfielder is something that every team needs to have, and the loss of Jonathan Douglas to us two years ago meant they needed to find a new creator from midfield, and up stepped Kershbaumer.

Of course Kershbaumer and all the other midfielders in the side are arguably not as good as Alan Judge, but sadly for the Bees he is still out of action after the challenge made by Luke Hyam last year. Someone to look out for, especially making through balls from deep

Scott Hogan

I’ve picked Scott Hogan as another dangerous threat, because with Lasse Vibe at the Rio Olympics with Denmark, he will need to carry the team for the next few matches.

Hogan suffered a cruciate ligament injury near the end of the 2014/15 season, which kept him out until April of this year. However, he came back with a bang, scoring seven goals in seven games for the Bees, moving them from lower mid-table to a top-10 finish. Replacing Andre Gray was hard last season, but Hogan’s return could be a blessing in disguise for the Bees

Weakest Link

Left-Back. Last season Brentford had Jake Bidwell as their starting full-back and he was outstanding for them, which got him a move to fellow Championship side QPR in the summer.

However, the Bees have really failed to replace him with Callum Elder brought in from Leicester on a season-long loan as a replacement.

I’m not saying that Elder is bad or anything, is just that they only have one out-and-out left-back in the squad and having not much football last season at Leicester, and only playing a handful of games on loan at Peterborough, I feel like that is our main area to exploit in the game.

Predicted Formation – Brentford

Brentford made a handful of changes at Exeter looking towards the game this weekend, so I can see them reverting back to a line up similar to the one they played against Huddersfield last Saturday.

Predicted Formation – Ipswich

In terms of Ipswich’s line-up this Saturday, I can see Mick reverting back to the team that played against Barnsley, but with minor alterations.

Having learnt that Brett Pitman will miss the game, it will be interesting to see if Mick decides to play all three of his attackers, or two of them.

For this game, I have gone with him sticking with three attackers, and then maybe David McGoldrick might go off near the end for someone like Conor Grant or Andre Dozzell with Freddie Sears pushed up top with Daryl Murphy.

Overall Summary

In the end I can see this being a close game with both sides cancelling each other out for the majority of the match.

On the opening day of last season I recall playing against Brentford away and going 2-0 up at half-time, with them clawing it back to 2-2 with both goals in injury time. Hopefully there won't be a repeat of that, but it is the Championship and anything can happen.

COYB

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