Analysis: 20-goal Mbeumo the Premier League’s biggest xG overperformer | OneFootball

Brentford finished the 2024/25 Premier League campaign with a 1-1 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers in a tough game that saw some of the Bees' key performers shine.

The west Londoners opened the scoring inside the first 20 minutes when Bryan Mbeumo helped win the ball high up the pitch before receiving it back from Christian Nørgaard to put his side in the lead.

That goal was Mbeumo's 20th of what has arguably been the forward's best year of his career to date.

Mbeumo has now matched Ivan Tony's tally in 2022/23, which is the most of any Brentford player in a Premier League season.

Those 20 goals also mean that just three players have scored more in the top flight this campaign: Erling Haaland (22), Alexander Isak (23) and Mohamed Salah (29).

This strike was perhaps one of Mbeumo's easier finishes this season with the Cameroonian having netted some remarkable goals, which is why he is the player who has over-performed his total xG the most (+7.7xG) - the sign of a super striker.

Thomas Frank's side had chances to put Wolves away in the first half but just couldn't find a second.

Yoane Wissa in particular had an effort saved by José Sá that would have been an excellent goal. Since we've given Mbeumo his flowers, we should look at Wissa's numbers as well.

Wissa finished just one goal behind his strike partner this season with an impressive tally of 19 in the league. However, unlike Mbeumo, none of Wissa's 19 involved scoring a penalty and in fact, only Salah (20) was responsible for more non-penalty goals.

Both Mbeumo and Wissa featured in the top 10 for total combined goals and assists: Mbeumo finished third with 27 (20 goals, seven assists), while Wissa finished sixth with 23 (19 goals, four assists).

The pair also were among the top players in goals per 90 minutes with Wissa ranked fifth (0.59 goals per 90) and Mbeumo eighth (0.53).

Alongside a strong supporting cast that included Mikkel Damsgaard, Kevin Schade and Keane Lewis-Potter, Brentford have banged in a team total of 66 goals this season – the highest for the Bees in a Premier League campaign.

To put that in perspective, only four teams in the league scored more: Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Newcastle United.

Brentford were unlucky to not clinch all three points in Wolverhampton and they were undone late on after a route-one ball was headed down by Jørgen Strand Larsen into the path of Marshall Munetsi who provided an excellent finish.

We've often kept tally on Mark Flekken's remarkable total number of saves this season and though the big Dutchman finished with a nice, even 150 saves (the most of any player in Europe's top five leagues for 2024/25) there was nothing he could have done about Munetsi's thunderbolt.

A hard-earned point may not have been what Brentford wanted from their trip to Molineux, but their performance showed some of their superb attacking qualities that should leave fans excited for the 2025/26 season.