Brentford beat Nottingham Forest 2-0 to level the recent series
An own goal from Nikola Milenkovic and a second from Igor Thiago gave Brentford a 2-0 home win over Nottingham Forest on Matchday 9.
By Harvey Watkins,
Brentford beat Nottingham Forest 2-0 at the Brentford Community Stadium on Saturday afternoon. An own goal from Nikola Milenkovic on 30 minutes and a goal from Igor Thiago on 76 minutes settled the Premier League Matchday 9 fixture.
The result matters most for what it ends. Nottingham Forest had won the previous two meetings, and had also won on each of their last two visits to this ground. Brentford's victory interrupts that sequence and brings the recent series level.
How the goals came
The opener came on the half-hour, when Milenkovic put the ball into his own net. It was the only goal of the first half, and it meant Brentford went into the interval ahead without one of their own players getting on the scoresheet.
Igor Thiago doubled the lead with 14 minutes of normal time remaining. That second goal was the decisive one in practical terms: at 1-0 a single Nottingham Forest goal would have levelled the match, while at 2-0 the visitors needed two in the closing stages. They did not find one, and Brentford kept a clean sheet.
The recent meetings
Taken with the five fixtures before it, Saturday's result leaves the six most recent meetings split evenly at three wins each. The sequence reads:
- 20 Jan 2024: Brentford 3-2 Nottingham Forest
- 21 Dec 2024: Brentford 0-2 Nottingham Forest
- 1 May 2025: Nottingham Forest 0-2 Brentford
- 17 Aug 2025: Nottingham Forest 3-1 Brentford
- 25 Jan 2026: Brentford 0-2 Nottingham Forest
- 31 Oct 2026: Brentford 2-0 Nottingham Forest
A few things stand out. None of those six matches has been drawn. Four of them have finished 2-0 to one side or the other, which suggests that whoever gets ahead in this fixture has tended to stay ahead. The goals across the six are close to even as well, with Nottingham Forest on nine and Brentford on eight.
The home side has not had the better of it. Before Saturday, Brentford had lost two of their last three home meetings with Nottingham Forest, and both of their wins in that spell before this one were split between home and away. Saturday was their first home win in the fixture since January 2024.
What it amounts to
It would be a stretch to read too much into one result. The run of meetings has swung back and forth, and the margin on Saturday owed something to an own goal. A different bounce on the half-hour and the afternoon might have been framed very differently.
What can be said is that Brentford took the lead, extended it, and held it without conceding, which is the pattern Nottingham Forest had followed in their own recent wins here. For now, the series is level, and nothing in the recent record points firmly towards either side when they next meet.