Chelsea 2-1 Brentford, Premier League: Post-match reactions, reviews

Brentford have been Chelsea’s definitive bogeyman over the last three seasons and could have been seen as a major challenge by this team. But week after week, this team seems to be becoming much more confident, more consistent and much more solid than the iterations that crumbled under the slightest pressure from the Bees.

It is perhaps one of the little secrets behind this ongoing resurgence. The team always looks up and is happy. This explains why Moisés Caicedo finds so many great long passes, even though he should be the more defensive player next to Enzo Fernández up front.

Looking up and forward also helps us keep the ball for long periods of the game and hardly give Brentford a chance, even when Bryan Mbeumo and co appeared near our box to try one of his usual tricks against us . On a few of these occasions Robert Sánchez actually performed well as goalkeeper and had little to no fear of clearing the ball out of our half.

We did everything we could to get the one golden chance to score and we came very close on several occasions. Until Noni Madueke hit a good cross to Marc Cucurella in the small penalty area and the Spaniard took the lead with a brilliant header shortly before the end of the first half.

Chelsea continued to dominate in the opening minutes of the second half, although not with as much momentum as in the first. There were still some very good chances for us to extend the lead, but things like Nicolas Jackson’s complete failure to calibrate his shots didn’t help us.

However, Thomas Frank’s substitutions began to make a difference. Chelsea began to regret not taking advantage of their earlier chances, especially after Fábio Carvalho almost scored an equalizer less than a minute after entering the pitch.

And then Jackson happened. After being absolutely frustrating all night, he finally achieved his goal and doubled our lead.

As is essentially tradition at this point, Chelsea allowed Mbeumo a late goal just to give the Bees some real hope of derailing our plans to take all the points today. But the Blues held strong and we finally got our job done against the Bees.

Carefree!

• The starting lineup is almost full, apart from Pedro Neto being replaced by Noni Madueke due to suspension and Malo Gusto starting because Roméo Lavia is injured.
• Chelsea could have scored more goals in the first half. Still, Cucurella’s goal is appropriate considering he covered almost the entire pitch today.
• If this is a very raw Nicolas Jackson, I can’t imagine what he’ll look like when he reaches his peak.
• Next up: Shamrock Rovers at home in the UEFA Conference League.
• KTBFFH!