Nottingham Forest host Brentford today in what is Martin O’Neill’s third home match at the club. 

The Reds enter the game on the back of a disappointing defeat at Birmingham last weekend, where a late Che Adams penalty sealed the points for Birmingham in a game that should’ve been settled much earlier.

New signing Yohan Benalouane was sent off and will miss this fixture through suspension, which is one of many worries for O’Neill. 

As for Brentford, Thomas Frank’s side will be brimming with confidence after their thrashing of play-off chasing Blackburn last weekend.

The Bees also managed a 3-1 FA Cup replay victory over fellow Bees Barnet on Tuesday, with a shuffled pack. 

We’d expect some of the bigger names to return for this enticing clash at the City Ground.

Here, we look at three things we expect to see in the big match later today…

Brentford playing with confidence 

Brentford have won every time they have visited the City Ground since their promotion to the Championship and we wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen again.

Forest have been poor since Christmas and although they are still within a chance of the play-offs, Brentford will be a tough game and the away side will be confident to get all three points again.

A return for Carvalho?

One feature of Martin O’Neill’s tenure at Forest so far has been the omission of the creative outlet Joao Carvalho. 

The Portuguese midfielder has been one of Forest’s star men this season, but has hardly featured under the new boss.

However, we would expect him to return to the team for today’s clash. 

O’Neill under pressure

It may sound silly, but Martin O’Neill is under pressure already, with some fans speculating he may not last much longer than the summer.

He has failed to really get the best results out of his side and the City Ground crowd could get on his back if that continues.