Aiming for their first Premier League win of 2025 at the third attempt, leaders Liverpool face a taxing trip to the Gtech Community Stadium to meet Brentford on Saturday afternoon.

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Taking the term super subs to a totally different level, Liverpool duo Kostas Tsimikas and Diogo Jota saved the Reds' bacon against Nottingham Forest with their first touches of the ball, having been sent on for a corner with their side 1-0 down in the second half.

Tsimikas's first action was to whip the ball into the mixer, and Jota's first touch saw the Portuguese flick a deft header into the far corner to cancel out Chris Wood's opening strike, but the sense of frustration was still palpable for the league leaders and their travelling fans.

Inspired goalkeeper Matz Sels and man-mountain defender Murillo both performed out of their skin to deny Liverpool a precious three points, and their lead at the Premier League summit has now been cut down by Arsenal thanks to the Gunners' North London derby success over Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, the Reds still hold an insurmountable four-point advantage with a game in hand, but they have started stuttering ever so slightly in 2025, as the 4-0 FA Cup crushing of Accrington Stanley represents their only win from their four games since the turn of the year.

Failure to triumph in West London would also see Liverpool go three Premier League games without a win for the first time since May-August 2023, but Slot is yet to lose a top-flight away game in charge of the Reds, whose unbeaten run in the competition now stands at an exceptional 16 matches.

As Liverpool prolong their undefeated sequence on the road, Brentford's Gtech Community Stadium had lost its fortress status before the visit of Man City, as Nottingham Forest, Arsenal and - astonishingly - Plymouth Argyle all left the Bees' home as the victors in successive matches.

A fourth straight home defeat appeared to be on the cards when Phil Foden bagged a second-half brace, but Yoane Wissa's quick reply set up a grandstand finish, in which Christian Norgaard came up with a true captain's contribution as he headed the Bees level in added time.

The midfielder's bedlam-inducing equaliser means that Brentford are just about clinging onto a top-half place for the time being - at least until Brighton & Hove Albion's clash with Ipswich Town on Thursday concludes - but their below-par form is befitting of a bottom-half team.

Indeed, only one of the hosts' last eight matches across all competitions has ended in victory, and while 29 goals on home turf may be a league high, only Southampton (27), West Ham United (24) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (23) have conceded more Premier League goals on their own patch than the Bees this term.

Clean sheets are also extremely hard for Brentford to come by against Liverpool, who have won each of their last four Premier League head-to-heads and have scored in all but one of their 22 meetings, only drawing a blank in a 0-0 First Division draw in 1936.

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