Burnley v Brentford?

This isn’t an actual game - not this season anyway - but a hypothetical match up, and not over 90 minutes but a whole season.

And the question I’m asking isn’t who would win but which would you rather watch?

It’s intriguing. One team is on course to beat every record going for the fewest number of goals conceded, the other scores (and concedes) at the other end for fun. Burnley haven’t let a goal in this year! Brentford, at the time of writing, have scored 42 Premier League goals and conceded…42. Burnley are in an exciting four-horse race for promotion from the EFL Championship, while Brentford are about as mid-table in eleventh as it’s possible to be in the Premier League.

Burnley’s games are so predictable; to a point where it seemed almost too easy to bet on a 0-0 when they met Leeds United recently. Brentford’s are the polar opposite; they are usually the team who’ve destroyed my – and millions more - Super 6 hopes before the clock reaches 3.15.

But which do fans prefer?

Let’s remove the league and opposition from the equation. They are where they are, and fans don’t have a say in that. And clubs can only beat – or draw with – what’s in front of them, to pull out another cliché.

And it changes anyway. Brentford have been established in the Premier League for a few seasons now, but before that they ‘worked their way up’. Burnley, after a few years in the top league,  have acquired the yo-yo existence between the highest two divisions that was once the domain of West Bromwich Albion.

And this dictates the manager’s priorities and style. Brentford, having built a solid side, can now afford to be a little more expressive. Boss Thomas Frank has said he’d always wanted his team to ‘go for it’ and now they can, safe that there are many more teams worse than them in the top flight.

Burnley did go for it themselves, not long ago, racking up points and goals galore when they swept to the Championship title in 2022/23, but Vincent Kompany found out – to the club’s cost if not his own – that the swashbuckling style that can win promotion at a canter doesn’t necessarily translate to the next division up. Certainly not without some pragmatism, as Brentford realised when they first mixed it with the elite.

Their approach has evolved, no doubt influenced by the ultra-speedy attacking quartet that has more than filled the Ivan Toney shaped hole in their forward line. Fast starts have been a feature of their play, with first minute goals in three consecutive games, followed by a positively pedestrian start that brought a goal after two minutes in the next game against Wolves. And while winning is far from assured – especially away from home – fans at the Gtech Community Stadium have seen scorelines of 5-3, 4-3, 3-2, 4-1 and 4-2 before the goals dried up a little around Christmas.

Talking of which, it was on that last Saturday before Santa came (when Brentford drew a blank at home for the first time) that Burnley last conceded a league goal of any description when Watford had the temerity to snatch a consolation in a defeat at Turf Moor, the last of just four goals that home fans have seen their team concede this season!

So one set of fans has seen nothing but goals. The other has barely seen any at either end. But which are happier?

The fans themselves can’t decide. Brentford’s – of the two – are less divided but there are still some who think they are too open and concede needless goals even though there are few complaints about the levels of entertainment served up.

By contrast, Burnley fans are split. While they are happy with the league position, and

potentially breaking all-time football league records, they aren’t all as happy with what they are paying to watch. One fan said, as a compliment, that it was ‘like watching Italia 90’ – the World Cup with the fewest number of goals – but another said ‘for the most part, it’s made me want to watch paint dry’ and many bemoan the lack of value they are getting.

Does it matter if they are promoted? Do the ends justify the means? You’d intuitively think so, but some Burnley fans have not made too much of a distinction between losing all the time last season and grinding their way through this one. ‘What’s the point if it’s so boring and frustrating?’ was one question raised.

Of course, fans can do little to control the way their team play. Other than voting with their feet, or shouting ‘shoot’ if their team play too many sideways passes, they have to go along with the manager’s philosophy. Scott Parker’s risk-averse tactics don’t guarantee goals, but they do points. And Brentford’s fans might not be so keen on their team - or Thomas Frank – if they were achieving mid-table finishes in the Championship even if they both scored and conceded a hundred goals in them. So context is, of course, everything.

But what about the entertainment? Tickets – as we know – aren’t cheap. So should there be an onus on teams to put on a show or is winning value-for money enough? In a BBC poll, 55% of Burnley fans seemed to favour the latter but that’s still quite a split.

And are we, as fans, asking too much anyway? Surely fans of Burnley and Brentford should just be grateful that they are in this debate. After all, one club is enjoying a goal-laden season of fun in the ‘promised land’ and the other is heavily involved in a promotion battle to join them.

Plenty of clubs would like either. Or to avoid relegation. Or just score a goal.

And it’s cyclical too. It is less than two years since Burnley were also scoring a hatful and playing with the handbrake off, while Brentford fans can quite easily recall not so great times when they’d have given anything for a goal at any time, let alone be disappointed if they haven’t seen one by the third minute.

Another variable here is what entertainment actually means. There are some very engaging goalless draws, and some calamitous 3-3 draws that are full of mistakes and misplaced passes. And what about the fan that prefers Italian-style defending to Ossie Ardiles’s ‘we’ll score one more than you’ tactics?

So, maybe we don’t have to pick which we prefer, but just accept that our beloved club can’t please everyone, and that sometimes we just have to accept what we have. Next season, it will probably be different anyway, and whatever happens, supporters, by definition, should back – not barrack – their team and managers through thick and thin.

But that’s probably naïve. And maybe with tickets priced so highly, fans have every right to demand more. Let’s ask them again at the end of the season.

Finally, if Burnley and Brentford do meet in the 2025/26 season, you wonder what might happen.

‘Something’, as said by too many commentators before such a contest, ‘has to give.’

I know one thing.

Super 6 would be gone for another week?