Brentford Under-21s return to Professional Development League action on Tuesday when they face west London rivals Queens Park Rangers Under-21s at the TSG Training Centre (1.30pm kick-off).Sam Saunders’ side will play their first game of 2026 looking to continue the rich vein of form which saw them end 2025 in second place.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of the west London derby, Saunders says his squad are eager to return to competitive action and continue their push towards the top of the table.<\/p>\n
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“We finished 2025 in a good place and the focus now is on carrying that momentum into the new year,” said Saunders.<\/p>\n
“The group have come back in really well and there\u2019s a good energy around the place.”<\/p>\n
With Brentford just one point off the top, Saunders believes consistency will be key in the second half of the campaign.<\/p>\n
“We know how tight it is at the top, so every game matters,” he added.<\/p>\n
“The challenge for us is to keep our standards high and keep improving, because that\u2019s what has put us in this position.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Saunders also addressed recent loan moves for Michael Olakigbe and Iwan Morgan, who have temporarily joined Swindon and Shrewsbury, respectively.<\/p>\n
“Michael going to Swindon and Iwan joining Shrewsbury are really positive moves,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“They both need that exposure to men\u2019s football and regular minutes, and it\u2019s a big part of their development.”<\/p>\n
“From our side, it creates opportunities for others in the group, and that competition is healthy.”<\/p>\n
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Last time out<\/p>\n
The young Bees’ most recent league fixture saw them claim an emphatic 3-0 victory away at Swansea City<\/a>.<\/p>\n Brentford were in control throughout the contest, with Luka Bentt scoring twice to put the west Londoners firmly in command before Chanse Headman added a third to seal a comfortable win.<\/p>\n About QPR<\/p>\n The Hoops go into Friday’s game sat seventh in the PDL table with four wins, six draws and four losses from their 14 games.<\/p>\n QPR have fallen to successive defeats against Burnley and Cardiff, although they did win their previous three fixtures before that.<\/p>\n Media coverage<\/p>\n The club will have updates of the game against QPR on social media<\/a>, as well as a match report on the club’s website<\/a> and app<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brentford Under-21s return to Professional Development League action on Tuesday when they face west London rivals Queens Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[45846,45849,45848,9,24,63,122,124,123,29138,45845,45847],"class_list":["post-99828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-brentford","tag-burnley","tag-michael-olakigbe","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-queens-park-rangers","tag-sam-saunders","tag-tsg-training-centre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}