Bryan Mbeumo: The Vastly Underrated Forward Firing Brentford Up the Table.
Bryan Mbeumo’s early season form has made him an unlikely contender in the Premier League’s golden boot race. But his game is about far more than just goals…
When Erling Haaland opened the scoring in Manchester City’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal last month to score his 10th goal of the season just four games and nine minutes into the 2024-25 campaign, he as good as wrapped up the Premier League golden boot race a week before the end of September.
Now, heading into the first few days of November, there is still surely only one winner of that particular race, but it’s no longer quite as much of a foregone conclusion as it was a month ago.
Haaland has scored only one more goal in his last four games, now on a far less superhuman 11 goals in nine appearances, and is now *just* three clear at the top of the goalscoring charts. With a consistent run of goals in the intervening period, Bryan Mbeumo has taken up a surprise position in second place.
The Brentford forward is enjoying a hot streak in front of goal, and having scored in six different matches, he has been more consistent than many of the league’s other top scorers.
Some context around his numbers is necessary, though. Mbeumo has scored two penalties, and his 96th-minute winner against Ipswich last weekend was a cross that went all the way in.
Our record books will forever have the goal down as a 0.02 xG chance, struck further out (31.8 metres) than any other Premier League goal this season, but we all know he wasn’t trying to score. The pass map of the goal shows an arrow from distance into the corner of the net that doesn’t tell the whole story. Even we can admit that sometimes there is more to football than coordinates on a pitch and numbers in spreadsheets.
