5 Things we learned from Brentford’s commanding win over Chelsea

1. There’s not one team in the league that wants to go to the G-Tech Community Stadium. Heading into this game I’d imagine Chelsea fans wouldn’t have been overly confident considering they’ve looked shaky at the back all season and with Brentford’s home record looking imperious over the last season or two, the first half won’t live long in the memory of anyone with neither team really looking like scoring but Chelsea probably just edged the first 45 minutes going closest through Pedro Neto’s shot in the box which was saved well by Kelleher midway through the half. Brentford were vastly improved in the second half and started to put some pressure on the Chelsea goal which eventually led to the opener in the 61st minute, Mikel Damsgaard’s corner was floated to the back-post where Jannick Schuster was waiting to head the ball back across to Jaidon Anthony who had an easy header from about a yard out to put Brentford 1-0 up. As the second half progressed Chelsea were pushing to get the equaliser and switched to a back four to try and put some more pressure on the Brentford goal but they were caught on the counter as Damsgaard found Schade in behind who ran clean through hitting a shot low which was saved by Martinez but the rebound came back to Igor Thiago to score his first goal of the season for Brentford, just before the full-time whistle Keith Andrew’s side put some icing on the cake as Kevin Schade’s deflected cross fell to substitute Fabio Carvalho at the back-post who rifled in a third goal for Brentford to wrap up the game and all three points. A brilliant last game before the international break for Keith Andrews and Brentford, not so much for Xabi Alonso and Chelsea.

2. This Brentford team is the last team you ever want to play against. To be honest I thought Brentford were actually quite poor in the first half and let Chelsea dictate the game which was unusual considering they normally fly out of the gates at home but they managed to get in at half-time at 0-0 which Keith Andrews was probably happy enough with, something changed in the second half and you could feel that pressure building which then led to the first goal which was a well worked set-piece routine from Brentford with Schuster knocking the ball back across the goal for Jaidon Anthony to score a tap-in. From there the game played perfectly into Brentford’s hands as Chelsea came forward allowing them to counter-attack with the pace of Kevin Schade which led to the second goal from a superb pass from Damsgaard which sent the German through on goal, the finish was actually poor from Schade but they got that bit of luck with the ball falling perfectly to Igor Thiago to open his account for the season. The third goal rounded off an excellent second half from the Bees as that man yet again Kevin Schade was at the heart of it having his cross deflected into Fabio Carvalho’s path who slid in to bag his first Premier League goal of the season, a brilliant way to mark his return to the side after missing so much of last season through injury. I think the thing that impressed me the most from Brentford tonight was the way they defended throughout the 90 minutes, it’s easy to forget that they are missing their two first-choice centre-backs in Nathan Collins and Sepp van den Berg but you wouldn’t have known it with the way Kristoffer Ajer and Jannick Schuster played tonight. They were also missing Mathias Jensen in midfield which you could notice but I thought Yehor Yarmoliuk did a great job filling in that spot, overall a terrific second half from Brentford was enough to nab all three points which takes up to third in the league. Can they secure a European spot this season? I don’t see why not.

3. A nightmare result to sit on for three weeks for Chelsea. With the extended international break coming up it was important that following dropped points to Arsenal and Hull City that Chelsea got something out of the game today but they were blew away in the second half by Brentford, I actually thought they were the better side in the first half but that’s not saying much considering both teams were pretty poor overall. You could feel the void left by Joao Pedro up front as Danny Welbeck was pretty ineffective all night up against Brentford’s back-up centre-backs but you could say the same for most of Chelsea’s attack, the first Brentford goal is a soft one from a Chelsea point-of-view with Barco up against Schuster at the back-post then no one marking Anthony in the middle who had a free header. You expected a response from Alonso’s team but we didn’t get one as the changes only led to Chelsea looking more open at the back which leads to the second goal, a completely disjointed midfield consisting of a finished Jordan Henderson and Valentin Barco who’s just new to the league was always going to be a disaster and we saw that in the second half. I thought it was pretty shameful of Alonso to only give Estevao five minutes when his side were already 2-0 down keeping Pedro Neto on for 87 minutes who was horrendous all evening on the right, strange decisions from Xabi Alonso in the second half which did play a part in why his side ultimately lost 3-0. Overall these last three games have been a reality check for Chelsea who will certainly not be challenging Arsenal and Man City for the league this season, not that anyone thought that before, right?

4. Just how strong is the Premier League this season? I don’t think there were many people that thought Chelsea were going to come to the G-Tech this evening and come away unscathed considering just how strong Brentford have been at home but what does that say about the league? The Bees finished 9th last season and still are being feared by just about everyone in the league, when you look around at the likes of Bournemouth, Brighton, Sunderland, Leeds, Nottingham Forest etc you see just how nasty this league can be when you’re not at you’re very best. Just look at midweek in the Carabao Cup in the Manchester United v Brighton match where the Seagulls played United off the pitch with Pascal Gross looking like Zidane in midfield, this is a team that finished 8th in the league last season, even in the Europa League during the week you see Bournemouth beating Real Sociedad 2-1 away from home, Sunderland beating AZ Alkmaar, Crystal Palace beating Lech Poznan 4-0 and you see just how strong the Premier League is. There’s no easy games in this league and I it’s only getting stronger year after year, kind of frightening as a Man United fan to be honest after what I’ve been seeing the last couple of weeks.

5. Where does this leave both teams? Going into the international break Brentford will undoubtedly be the happier side going unbeaten in their first five games with two wins and three draws which has them in third place in the league, that will probably drop over the next couple of days but a successful start nonetheless for Keith Andrews and Brentford. Chelsea on the other hand have come right back down to Earth over the last three games following wins against Fulham and Brighton in their first two matches, losses to Arsenal and Brentford along with a draw to Hull City leaves them 7th in the league which will undoubtedly be lower come the end of the weekend. Defensively they have been an absolute shambles at the start of the season but the break does give them a chance to get the likes of Moises Caicedo, Marco Palestra, Joao Pedro and Reece James back to full fitness. Plenty to analyse over the break and I’ll be doing an analysis on each of the big teams start to the season over the three week break so stay tuned for that over the next few weeks, should be good fun.