Brentford v Manchester United

Brentford v Manchester United: Back Bees to find net at home

Brentford have scored in most of their home games and Dan Fitch is backing that trend to continue in Wednesday's match against Manchester United.

Bees have buzz at home

Brentford will be looking to tighten things up after suffering heavy defeats in their last two Premier League outings.

At the weekend Brentford lost 3-0 at Liverpool, which followed a 4-1 away defeat at Southampton. At home the Bees tend to keep things tighter, though it would be a stretch to describe the Brentford Community Stadium as a fortress.

Four of Brentford's six wins in the Premier League this season have come at their stadium, drawing one and losing five on home turf. Yet even in defeat Brentford are hard to beat at home. Both Chelsea and Manchester City could only manage 1-0 victories.

Brentford's injury crisis has eased a little, but they still have a significant number of players unavailable. David Raya Martin, Mathias Jorgensen, Charlie Goode, Josh Dasilva and Tarique Fosu-Henry are all injured, while Frank Onyeka is away at the African Cup of Nations.

United have old problems under new manager

Manchester United's erratic form under Ralf Rangnick continues to frustrate.

When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was sacked and replaced by Rangnick, Manchester United fans could be forgiven for expecting the type of uplift in form that typically comes when a new manager is appointed. The reality has been something different, with Rangnick experiencing the same issues between finding a balance between defence and attack as Solskjaer did.

At the weekend United looked to be cruising to a win away at Aston Villa, with Bruno Fernandes scoring both goals to give them a 2-0 lead. Yet as the game went on, Rangnick's side came under increasing pressure and eventually Villa pulled it back to 2-2. That result leaves United in seventh place and they have only won three of their six Premier League games under Rangnick (D2 L1).

Cristiano Ronaldo missed the Villa game with a hip injury. Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Marcus Rashford are also doubts for this one, with Eric Bailly unavailable, due to being away at AFCON.

Avoid result markets involving unpredictable visitors

Manchester United are the favourites at 1.87, with the draw at 3.8 and Brentford at 4.8.

With their current form, it's hard to have much faith in United at that price, even though they should win with the talent available to Rangnick. Since he took over, United have only won one of their three away games and that was a narrow 1-0 victory at Norwich. They've since drawn away at Newcastle and Villa, with all three of those sides in the bottom half of the table.

This looks like a match where it makes sense to avoid the result markets entirely. United are just too unpredictable right now.

Brentford have strong home scoring record

Both teams to score is available at 1.86 and has landed in each of Manchester United's last two away games. Brentford have scored in seven of their 10 home games, with only Brighton, Chelsea and Manchester City keeping clean sheets against them.

After scoring a brace against Villa, there could be some value in backing Fernandes to score at 3.1. It was the first time that the Portuguese playmaker had scored since the match against Arsenal in early December.

The signing of Ronaldo has has an impact on Fernandes' form, as has Rangnick's experiments with 4-2-2-2. You would expect the manager to want to continue with the 4-3-3 that he used against Villa, in which Fernandes was a threat as part of the midfield three.