Luton Town play host to Brentford on Saturday afternoon holding a two-point advantage over last season's playoff runners-up in the Championship standings.
While the Hatters have recorded four points from their last two fixtures, Brentford make the trip to Kenilworth Road after two games without success.
Match preview
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Before the 2020-21 season got underway, you would have been hard pushed to find anyone who felt that Luton would be ahead of Brentford after eight matches.
However, despite their respective trajectories during the last campaign, it is Nathan Jones's side who have recorded the better results over the past six-and-a-half weeks.
The Hatters appeared to have wasted their opening results by succumbing to three defeats in the space of four matches, failing to score a goal against Watford, Stoke City or Millwall.
The win over Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsbrough appears to be a turning point, however, with Luton now in the mindset of being disappointed with a 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest in midweek.
Luton now sit just a point adrift of the top six, although Jones and his players will only be focused on earning as many as early points as possible to keep themselves away from a relegation battle.
From Brentford's perspective, Saturday's encounter has taken on greater importance after conceding a late goal to Norwich City on Tuesday evening.
Instead of sitting in seventh place and moving above the Canaries, the London outfit are now at risk of losing ground on the early pacesetters with another disappointing result.
Brentford are having few issues in the final third with their return of 13 goals the third highest in the division, but Thomas Frank needs to see considerable improvements made at the back.
Although the Dane is unlikely to change his style of play, he will demand that his players are more resolute after making a habit of conceding goals at the wrong moments.
Luton Town Championship form: LWLLWD
Brentford Championship form: DLWWLD
Brentford form (all competitions): WLWWLD
Team News
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The short turnaround may lead to Jones making a couple of alterations to his Luton XI.
George Moncur or Joe Morrell could get an opportunity at the expense of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, while Kazenga LuaLua may replace Elliot Lee.
Although Pontus Jansson is closing in on a return from a hamstring injury, the centre-back may only feature among the Brentford substitutes.
Sergi Canos could be preferred to Saman Ghoddos on the left flank.
Luton Town possible starting lineup:
Sluga; Lockyer, Pearson, Bradley; Cranie, Rea, Morrell, Norrington-Davies; Mpanzu, LuaLua; Collins
Brentford possible starting lineup:
Raya; Dalsgaard, Pinnock, Sorensen, Henry; Marcondes, Jensen, Dasilva; Mbuemo, Toney, Canos
We say: Luton Town 1-3 Brentford
Although Frank will be increasingly concerned about his side's lack of consistency, this may be the kind of game that the Bees require to get back on track. Luton should prove to be tough opponents, but it may lead to the visitors raising their level of performance.
Top betting tip
Our expert tipster partners at Sporita.com are predicting an away win in this match. Click here to find out what else they are predicting for this game and for more of their tried-and-tested football tips.Away Win:dataData Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Brentford win with a probability of 54.57%. A draw had a probability of 24.5% and a win for Luton Town had a probability of 20.95%.
The most likely scoreline for a Brentford win was 0-1 with a probability of 12.6%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (10.4%) and 1-2 (9.59%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (11.61%), while for a Luton Town win it was 1-0 (7.03%). The actual scoreline of 0-3 was predicted with a 5.7% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Brentford would win this match.
