Brentford beat Chelsea at home for the first time since 1938, a three-goal second-half display leaving them unbeaten and third in the Premier League table. Where Brentford looked coherent and disciplined, Chelsea looked like a side still under construction, and the contrast between two clubs separated by wealth but not by league position was difficult to miss.
The result extends a run of three games without a win for Chelsea, and it casts a harsher light on the two chaotic victories with which they opened the season. Those early results were always hard to read: either points banked on the way to something more solid, or evidence of deeper problems. The longer the winless run has gone on, the more the second reading has looked like the accurate one, and the idea that Chelsea were the team best placed to challenge Arsenal now appears over-optimistic.
Much has changed around Chelsea this summer, with 11 new signings arriving and the club continuing to function as something of a trading hub. This was also their first game since Todd Boehly and Mark Walter agreed to sell their 12.8% stakes to the major shareholder, Clearlake Capital. Boehly’s spell as the de facto sporting director produced little beyond £300m spent on players who did not fit and a £325,000-a-week contract for Raheem Sterling. Yet the £950m paid for that 12.8% stake values the club’s enterprise at an implausible £5bn, more than double what was paid for it in 2022. Four years and 60 arrivals on, it remains hard to say Chelsea look any more like title challengers.
Xabi Alonso’s team again followed a familiar pattern: a fast start that faded into something scratchier. Pedro Neto would have given Chelsea a ninth-minute lead but for a sharp save from Caoimhín Kelleher. Jordan Henderson made his full Chelsea debut at his former club, while Danny Welbeck, Pep Chavarría and Valentín Barco made their first league starts. Barco was booed consistently by the home supporters, and Emi Martínez was jeered as well; Henderson’s reception as a returning player was more sporadic and muted.
Goalless at the break was a surprise given that these were two of the league’s more prolific sides. Chelsea had scored and conceded in every game, while Brentford had scored in every game and kept only one clean sheet. The first half was not cautious so much as frenetic, full of corners and long throws that came to nothing, and of the possibility of chances rather than actual shooting opportunities.
The goal finally arrived on the hour, and it came from a dead ball. Jannik Schuster climbed above the diminutive Barco to head Mikkel Damsgaard’s corner back across goal, where Jaidon Anthony nodded in from close range for his first goal since his summer move from Burnley.
Chelsea belatedly applied pressure and the closing minutes were played largely in Brentford’s half, but they created little beyond corners as the home side kept their composure and structure. The second goal came on the break seven minutes from time. Damsgaard led the counter and played in Kevin Schade; Martínez saved the side-footed effort, but Igor Thiago guided an awkwardly bouncing ball inside the post for his first goal of the season. Fábio Carvalho lashed home a third in stoppage time to compound Chelsea’s misery.
Brentford can now begin to consider European qualification a real possibility. Chelsea, as they have been since the takeover, remain a work in progress.