Brighton and Arsenal will play the first Premier League match in 2025 since they'll meet on Wednesday, 1 January, in a match that will close out Round 19 of the competition.
The Bees enter this match on a bad run of three games without a win, so they'll hope to end this streak with a win over one of the main candidates to win the title this season.
While Brentford sit in 12th place in the standings, the Gunners are currently third, but a win in this match (or even a draw) would put them ahead of the most pleasant surprise of the season, Nottingham Forest.
Arsenal enter this match with two wins in a row and on an eight-game streak without a loss, so they're clearly in good form. However, Liverpool are already nine points ahead of them, so the London team will have a tough task of making up the difference in the second part of the season if they want to lift the Premier League trophy.
In any case, this should be an exciting duel and we expect to see a hard-fought, interesting game.
How the bookies view it: The guests clearly favoured to win
Not surprising is the fact that Arsenal are the clear favourites in this match, with odds of 4/11 at Boylesports. Meanwhile, Brentford's win is priced at 6/1 and a draw has odds of 15/4, again at Boylesports.
Recent head-to-head: The Gunners dominating the matchup
With four wins over Brentford in their last five H2H duels, Arsenal have clearly been the better team of the two in recent years. In fact, Brentford have only won against Arsenal once in the Premier League and they've met six times so far.
Players to watch: Can Arsenal keep up the pace without Saka?
With one of the team's key players out for a while as Bukayo Saka had to go into surgery to deal with his hamstring injury, other Gunners will have to step up if Arsenal is to stay in the title race with Liverpool.
One of the players that will have to do even more than he did so far is Kai Havertz, the team's top scorer with seven goals in the Premier League. The German forward will remain the focal part of Arsenal's offense and if you want to back Havertz to score in this game, you'll get 13/8 odds at Boylesports.
On the other hand, Brentford have relied on Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa for goals this season as these two have scored 10 and nine goals in the league, respectively.
However, with Arsenal able to keep a clean sheet in two of the last three duels with Brentford, betting on any one of them to score in this game is a bit risky. Still, the odds of 7/2 on both of them to score at any time are tempting.
Predicted line-ups
Brentford will have to manage without Mark Flekken and Ben Mee, who got injured in the last round. Furthermore, Sepp van den Berg, Mathias Jensen, Igor Thiago, Gustavo Nunes, Ethan Pinnock, Rico Henry, Aaron Hickey, Josh Dasilva, and Kristoffer Ajer are also on Brentford's injury list.
When it comes to the Gunners, we mentioned that they'll be a while without Bukayo Saka. Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, and Raheem Sterling will also miss this match with injuries.
Brentford: Valdimarsson – Roerslev, Collins, Kim, Lewis-Potter – Janelt, Norgaard – Mbeumo, Damsgaard, Schade – Wissa
Arsenal: Raya – Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly – Odegaard, Partey, Rice – Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard
Anything else catch the eye?
With Brentford failing to score in two of their last three games in the league and Arsenal keeping a clean sheet in two of their last three, we can see the Gunners winning this to nil and the odds are pretty sweet at Boylesport – 8/5. We already mentioned why Havertz is one of the players to keep an eye on here and the odds on him scoring, which is another of our tips for this game.
Lastly, with three of the last four duels between these two teams going under 2.5 total goals, we wouldn't be surprised if that's the case in their upcoming duel as well.
This English Premier League match between Brentford and Arsenal will be played on Jan 1, 2025 and kick off at 17:30. Check below for our tipsters best Brentford vs Arsenal prediction. You may also visit our dedicated betting previews section for the most up to date previews.
