Since their promotion to the Premier League this season after winning the playoff final, Brentford have shown why they deserve to be at the topmost division. They have been one of the most attractive teams to look forward to in the league.
With three wins and three draws in seven matches, the Bees find themselves sitting on seventh in the table. They announced themselves in style defeating Arsenal in the opening matchweek while holding back Liverpool in a thrilling 3-3 draw at home.
Thomas Frank can boast of having one of the best-drilled teams in the league who go out on the pitch with a proper plan and ways to execute them perfectly. Brentford has shown why it is a team game with every player giving their best on the pitch.
One such player has been the 22-year-old, French forward Bryan Mbeumo who has impressed fans and critics alike so far in the league while scoring twice already.
We look at his attacking stats from the stats.
Mbeumo has played upfront in pair with Ivan Toney in Frank’s 3-5-2 system. The pair have been extremely aware of each other’s positioning and movements, hunting in packs. Mbeumo has appeared in all seven matches playing on the right side of the front two. But he has been very dynamic, moving across the whole pitch, covering a lot of ground. The above viz shows that the French has spent the majority of his time on the left side of the pitch in the attacking third, outside the penalty area or trying to sneak into the box from the wings. He has also spent a considerable amount of time near the right flank as well, while dropping deep into his own half to help out in defence, sometimes providing an extra outlet to play the ball out from the back.
The forward has played a relatively lesser amount of passes than the other forwards in the division. He has only completed 132 passes in seven matches while his passing accuracy has not been great as well with only 64%, averaging 19 passes per 90 with 38 touches on the ball. This is somewhere the French can improve his game.
Mbeumo has played the majority of his passes in the attacking third of the pitch, either outside the penalty area or near the left-wing. Most of the passes have been short where he has tried to link up with others and make runs into the box. While Toney likes to stay a bit deeper to create more chances, Mbeumo perfectly compliments him by staying near the goal to finish off the chances. The chemistry between them has been genuinely good, the second goal against Wolves remains an example of that.
The French international has tried to deliver crosses into the box at times for his teammates with xT of 0.3050 but has not registered an assist yet.
The majority of his shots have been inside the box while attempting a few from the edge of the area as well. Averaging a goal every 298 minutes in the league, he has scored both of his goals inside the box on the left side, on his stronger left foot on both occasions. Mbeumo has taken a lot of shots but has not been very clinical in front of goal. With just 25% shot accuracy he has failed to test the keepers much.
His positioning has been really solid with and without the ball. He has been able to get himself into extremely good areas on the pitch to take shots on target ranking 97th percentile for xG accumulated per 90 and 97th percentile in xG gathered from per shot as well. But his 56th percentile in shots on target percentage metric shows that he has failed to take total advantage of his own smart positioning in the box.
Still 22, he has got a lot of scope and time to improve. Mbeumo is going to play a huge part if Brentford would want to enjoy a lot of upcoming seasons in the Premier League and his chemistry and understanding with Ivan Toney is the key to it.
