For most of the twentieth century, Brentford against Liverpool was a rarity. The two clubs shared a division only briefly, and once Brentford dropped out of the First Division in 1947 the fixture all but vanished from the league calendar, surviving only through occasional cup draws. Brentford’s promotion to the Premier League in 2021 changed that completely. In the seasons since, the meeting has become a fixture that Liverpool have usually controlled but never found comfortable, and west London has produced some of the more chastening afternoons of the modern Liverpool era.
This page sets out the established record between the clubs: the overall balance, the historic meetings, and the run of Premier League games that has defined the rivalry in its current form.
Overall head-to-head record
Across all competitions the clubs have met 26 times. Liverpool hold a clear advantage, with 16 wins to Brentford’s 5, and 5 matches drawn. That superiority is long-standing rather than recent: Liverpool have spent almost their entire history in the top flight, while Brentford’s time at that level has come in two widely separated bursts, the first ending in 1947 and the second beginning in 2021.
26Total competitive meetings


The headline figures understate how awkward the fixture has been for Liverpool in its current incarnation. Of the Premier League meetings played since 2021, Brentford have taken points from Liverpool on several occasions, and both of Brentford’s outright league wins in that period arrived at home, where the compact Gtech Community Stadium and a direct, physical style have repeatedly unsettled visiting sides.
The early meetings: First Division and cup ties
The clubs first became regular opponents in the mid-1930s, when Brentford enjoyed their original spell in the First Division. Those seasons produced a competitive set of results, with honours reasonably shared across the fixtures played between the clubs’ promotion and the Second World War. Brentford beat Liverpool 2-1 in a First Division meeting in November 1938, one of the home wins that kept the early series close.
League football was suspended during the war, and when it resumed the fixture had only a short life left. The clubs met in the First Division in October 1946, when Liverpool won 1-0, and again in May 1947, when the sides drew 1-1. That May 1947 meeting was the last time Brentford and Liverpool faced each other in the league for more than 74 years. Brentford were relegated at the end of that season and would not return to the top division until 2021.
The fixture did not disappear entirely. The two met in the League Cup in September 1974, Liverpool winning 2-1, and again over two legs in the 1983-84 League Cup, which Liverpool went on to win. They also met in the FA Cup quarter-final in March 1989, Liverpool winning 4-0 at Anfield on their way to the final that season. These cup ties kept the rivalry alive on paper but did little to establish it as a regular contest.

DateCompetitionResult

Nov 1938First DivisionBrentford 2-1 Liverpool
Oct 1946First DivisionLiverpool 1-0 Brentford
May 1947First DivisionBrentford 1-1 Liverpool
Sep 1974League Cup R2Liverpool 2-1 Brentford
Oct 1983League Cup R2Brentford 1-4 Liverpool
Oct 1983League Cup R2Liverpool 4-0 Brentford
Mar 1989FA Cup QFLiverpool 4-0 Brentford

The 2021 reunion: a six-goal thriller
When Brentford returned to the top flight, their first home league meeting with Liverpool, on 25 September 2021, was also the clubs’ first league encounter since that 1947 draw. It set the tone for the modern rivalry perfectly. Brentford, newly promoted and unafraid, traded blows with a Liverpool side that would finish the season as runners-up in both the Premier League and Champions League, and the match ended 3-3.
Ethan Pinnock, Vitaly Janelt and substitute Yoane Wissa scored for Brentford; Diogo Jota, Mohamed Salah and Curtis Jones replied for Liverpool. Wissa’s late equaliser secured a point that announced Brentford as a Premier League side capable of hurting the best teams in the country.


Brentford’s home wins
The reunion fixture was not a one-off. On 2 January 2023, Brentford produced one of their signature results, beating Liverpool 3-1 at the Gtech Community Stadium. An Ibrahima Konate own goal and strikes from Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo did the damage, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scoring Liverpool’s only reply. The performance was built on exactly the qualities that make Brentford awkward at home: aerial threat from set pieces, direct running, and a willingness to turn the game into a physical contest.
Brentford repeated the feat in October 2025, winning 3-2 at home in another high-scoring meeting. Taken together, those results underline a clear pattern. Brentford’s danger in this fixture is almost entirely tied to home advantage, where their style and their stadium combine to drag Liverpool into the kind of scrappy, transitional game the Londoners thrive on.

Liverpool reassert control
For all Brentford’s moments, the broader run of results has stayed firmly with Liverpool. At Anfield the fixture has been largely one-sided: Liverpool won 3-0 in January 2022, 1-0 in May 2023, 3-0 in November 2023 and 2-0 in August 2024, before being held to a 1-1 draw by Brentford at Anfield in May 2026. Away from the Gtech, Brentford have found points far harder to come by.
Liverpool have also learned to win in west London when they get their approach right. In February 2024 they won 4-1 at Brentford, and in January 2025 they won 2-0 at the same ground, both times by refusing to be drawn into a chaotic game and instead controlling the tempo. The most recent meetings have reinforced Liverpool’s edge, including a narrow 2-1 away win in October 2026 in which Brentford finished with nine men after two dismissals.

Season/DateVenueResult

Sep 2021BrentfordBrentford 3-3 Liverpool
Jan 2022AnfieldLiverpool 3-0 Brentford
Jan 2023BrentfordBrentford 3-1 Liverpool
May 2023AnfieldLiverpool 1-0 Brentford
Nov 2023AnfieldLiverpool 3-0 Brentford
Feb 2024BrentfordBrentford 1-4 Liverpool
Aug 2024AnfieldLiverpool 2-0 Brentford
Jan 2025BrentfordBrentford 0-2 Liverpool
Oct 2025BrentfordBrentford 3-2 Liverpool
May 2026AnfieldLiverpool 1-1 Brentford
Oct 2026BrentfordBrentford 1-2 Liverpool

What the record tells us
Read as a whole, the Brentford against Liverpool series is a study in two different kinds of football club. Liverpool bring the weight of history and a squad built to dominate possession; Brentford bring a sharply defined identity and a home ground that flattens the gap between the sides. The overall numbers belong to Liverpool, and comfortably so, but the texture of the modern fixture belongs to both.
The clearest takeaway is the home-and-away split. Brentford’s wins have come exclusively at their own stadium, where they can impose their physical, set-piece-heavy game, while Liverpool have turned Anfield into a near-fortress in this fixture and have increasingly found ways to win in west London too. For a rivalry that effectively lay dormant for three-quarters of a century, it has quickly become one of the more revealing tests of whether a Liverpool side is willing to win ugly.