Boo boys out in force again at the Bridge
(But Brentford boss Frank thinks rivals Chelsea are a good team!)
IT IS not as hard to win at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea make it look. Just ask Brentford. For the third year running, Thomas Frank’s side came to Chelsea and left with three points. The aura of old is long gone, one of many issues Mauricio Pochettino has to fix.
It is now just one league win in 13 on their own patch — and that against newly-promoted Luton — a run going back to March, and three throughout the whole of 2023.
It does not help when they are arguing among themselves. Frustration was already brewing towards the end of a goalless first half when, during a break in play, one fan picked out Nicolas Jackson and demanded more effort from him. The striker replied with a finger to his mouth. Pochettino took exception too and told the fan to support the team.
Later, there was another spat between Pochettino’s No 2 Jesus Perez and Bernardo Cueva, a member of Frank’s staff, which saw the Chelsea man sent off for entering Brentford’s technical area. As the game wore on there was less and less for Chelsea fans to get excited about and the players were booed off.
After the encouraging display for most of the draw against Arsenal last week, Chelsea failed to build on a promising first half against Brentford and ran out of ideas.
They had more of the ball but Brentford displayed increasing intent as the game wore on, not least in the urgency Ethan Pinnock showed to climb above Chelsea’s dozing defenders and head in the visitors’ opener before Bryan Mbeumo added a late second.
Given Brentford’s record at Stamford Bridge, it was no surprise there was belief and expectation whenever they did attack, but Chelsea still looked the more likely scorers for most of the first half.
Cole Palmer was central to Chelsea’s most positive moments. Their final summer signing has quickly established himself as an essential part of Pochettino’s team, impressing with his versatility and willingness to take responsibility.
He has two goals and two assists for Chelsea so far and should have had more of the latter from the first half. He created chances for Noni Madueke, who hit the bar, Raheem Sterling, twice, and Marc Cucurella.
At the halfway stage there only looked like one winner. Frank described his side’s display as ‘average, if not less than that’, while he raved about Chelsea. ‘You can see the exciting potential in the Chelsea team,’ he said. ‘If I was associated with Chelsea I would be positive about them.’
After the break, Chelsea’s chances dried up until a late couple. Brentford grew in confidence, managing to find the goals to go with their performance.
There was one warning before their first when Sanchez stuck out an arm to repel Vitaly Janelt’s effort from Kristoffer Ajer’s cutback. Not long after Mathias Jensen slipped Mbeumo in behind Chelsea’s defence and he hung out a cross which Pinnock came flying in to nod past Sanchez while Pochettino’s defenders left dealing with the delivery to each other.
‘I’ve been disappointed with him not scoring more headers with his size and ability,’ Frank said.
Thiago Silva and then Palmer and Deivid Washington had chances to level for Chelsea before Brentford warned Chelsea twice more. First, when they raced clear for a fourversus-one counter-attack and Yehor Yarmolyuk was thwarted by Sanchez, and then when Mbeumo side-footed wide.
The third time, there was no escape for Chelsea. They had everybody up for a late corner including goalkeeper Sanchez, but Brentford cleared and Maupay streaked away, teeing up Mbeumo to score into an empty net.
Frank said: ‘Sometimes it’s a coincidence that we’ve managed to win here three times. But it’s very impressive that we can do that being Brentford, given the players and the budget Chelsea have.’