Brentford’s unbeaten start faces a familiar, dangerous twist on Saturday – and his name is Wilson Isidor.
Thomas Frank’s side have opened the campaign with a win and a draw, and they probably should have had more than a point at Leeds last weekend. The football has been sharp, the structure familiar, the mood upbeat. The only thing missing so far? The man who usually finishes everything.
Waiting on Igor Thiago
Igor Thiago carried Brentford through last season. Forty per cent of their Premier League goals came from the Brazilian, a haul that swept him to both the squad’s and the supporters’ player of the year awards. His 22 league goals in 2025-26 left him behind only Erling Haaland in the scoring charts, and no player with at least 25 shots could match his ruthless 26.2% conversion rate.
Right now, that version of Thiago feels like it’s still in the dressing room.
None of Brentford’s four league goals this season bear his name. He missed a penalty on the opening day against Spurs, has yet to score in the league and, of his seven shots so far, five have flown off target. For a striker so clinical last term, it is a jarring start.
Yet the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Thiago scored in both of Brentford’s pre-season friendlies. He came off the bench to find the net in the EFL Cup win at Birmingham last month. The rhythm is there, just not yet in the Premier League. And Sunderland may be exactly the opponents he wants.
Thiago enjoyed this fixture last season, scoring three times across the two league meetings. He started 37 of Brentford’s 38 league games in that campaign, the immovable focal point of Frank’s attack. The Gtech Community Stadium has seen him at his most ruthless. Sunderland know what that looks like.
Sunderland’s super-sub threat
On the other side stands a striker whose impact is measured not in minutes, but in moments.
Wilson Isidor has become Sunderland’s late-game weapon. Of his 32 Premier League appearances last season, 21 came from the bench. This term, he has again been introduced as a second-half substitute in both of the Black Cats’ league games.
The pattern is clear. So is the danger.
Since the start of last season, no player has scored more Premier League goals as a substitute than Isidor’s five. He doesn’t need long to change a match; he just needs a chance.
Last weekend he did it again, stepping off the bench to score a late winner against Fulham and hand Sunderland their first points of the season. That goal carried a familiar echo. It was only the second time he has struck a decisive winner in the Premier League – the first came exactly a year earlier, a 90th-minute clincher in a 2-1 victory over Brentford at the Stadium of Light.
Brentford know how it feels to be stung by Isidor in stoppage time. They won’t have forgotten.
History, travel and a London problem
For all Isidor’s heroics, Sunderland arrive in west London with history and geography stacked against them.
Their last win away at Brentford in any competition came in August 1987, back in the third tier. Since then, two draws and two defeats on this ground tell a quieter, more stubborn story of frustration.
Their wider record in the capital is just as bleak. Sunderland have taken only eight points from their last 16 away Premier League matches in London, losing 12 of those. They have been beaten in each of their last three such trips, conceding three goals every time. One of those defeats was a 3-0 loss at Brentford in January.
So the picture is set: Brentford, unbeaten and largely convincing, waiting for their star striker to ignite; Sunderland, inconsistent but armed with the league’s most dangerous super-sub, trying to break a long, miserable run in London.
If Thiago rediscovers his finishing touch and Isidor again turns late chaos into points, the Gtech could be the stage for two very different No 9 stories colliding in the same afternoon.
