Brentford 3-0 Chelsea: three goals in the last half hour

Brentford 3-0 Chelsea was a scoreless match for an hour and then stopped being one. Jaidon Anthony headed in on sixty-one minutes at the Gtech Community Stadium on Friday night, Igor Thiago made it two on eighty-three and Fabio Carvalho, a substitute who had been on the pitch for seven minutes, scored the third in the fourth minute of stoppage time. Brentford are still unbeaten in the league.

Chelsea had 59.4% of the ball and twelve corners to Brentford’s four. They had two shots on target. Brentford, with two fifths of the possession, had six on target from thirteen attempts, and three of them went in inside half an hour of football.

An hour of nothing, then a header

The first goal came from a corner. Jannik Schuster headed the ball across and Anthony, from very close range, headed it into the top left corner on sixty-one minutes. Until then Chelsea’s twelve corners had produced the pressure and none of the finishing.

Thomas Frank’s substitutions arrived immediately afterwards, on sixty-nine minutes: Aaron Hickey for Michael Kayode and Mamadou Sangare for Yehor Yarmoliuk. Chelsea answered on seventy-one with Geovany Quenda for Danny Welbeck and Josh Acheampong for Wesley Fofana.

Thiago on the break, and a booking for the celebration

The second was the kind of goal a team with 40% of the ball waits all night for. On eighty-three minutes Thiago finished a fast break with a right-footed shot from the centre of the box into the top right corner. A minute later he was shown a yellow card for excessive celebration, and on eighty-five Sangare was booked for a bad foul. Those were Brentford’s only two cards; Chelsea did not collect one all night.

Chelsea kept changing it: Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli for Valentin Barco and Estevao for Pedro Neto on eighty-seven. In the same minute Brentford sent on Carvalho for Mikkel Damsgaard, and it was Carvalho who finished the night off in the fourth minute of added time, right-footed from the right side of the six-yard box into the top right corner.

• Jaidon Anthony (Brentford), 61 minutes: header, assisted by Jannik Schuster from a corner
• Igor Thiago (Brentford), 83 minutes: right-footed, from a fast break
• Fabio Carvalho (Brentford), 90+4 minutes: right-footed, from the six-yard box
• Shots: Brentford 13 (6 on target), Chelsea 12 (2 on target)
• Possession: Brentford 40.6%, Chelsea 59.4%
• Corners: Brentford 4, Chelsea 12

Two wins, three draws, no defeats

Brentford have nine points from five matches: two wins, three draws and nothing lost. They have scored ten and conceded four, and the pattern of their season is that they give the ball away and keep the goal. The 17,193 at the Gtech watched their side have less of it than the visitors for the fifth time this season and win by three.

Chelsea stay on seven points from five, with ten scored and twelve conceded. They are the only side in the division to have conceded double figures while also scoring them, and that has not changed: their matches remain the most open in the league, and Friday was the first of them to finish without a Chelsea goal at all.

Andy Madley refereed. Twelve corners and two shots on target is the line that will sit in Stamford Bridge’s analysis: territory without threat, for the second week running.

The same scoreline, the same stadium

Brentford opened the season by beating Tottenham 3-0 at the Gtech. Five weeks later they beat Chelsea by the same score on the same ground, and in between they drew three in a row: 1-1 at Leeds, 1-1 with Sunderland, 2-2 at Bournemouth. Both of their wins have come by three goals at home; everything else has finished level.

The passing numbers explain how. Brentford completed 274 passes from 344, Chelsea 430 from 497. A side that gives away a third of the ball and a third of the passing volume does not usually win by three, and Brentford have now done it twice. They committed ten fouls to Chelsea’s seven and made two saves to Chelsea’s three, which is the shape of an evening spent defending and then punishing.

Chelsea had beaten Fulham 3-2 and Brighton 4-3, lost 2-1 at Arsenal and drawn 2-2 with Hull. Four matches with at least five goals in them, and then a fifth with three, all of them at the other end.

Simulate the rest of the Premier League season

Brentford’s unbeaten start and Chelsea’s open matches are two of the odder stories of the opening month. On the Premier League simulator you can take the real table forward from here, or run this fixture again and see how often it stays goalless past the hour.

• Play the remaining 33 rounds from the real table and the real fixture list
• Run any fixture through the AI match simulator, in tactical view or in the physics arena
• Open the line-up builder for both clubs before you kick off a simulation
• Turn an arena simulation into a vertical video ready to share

"Twelve corners, two shots on target, three goals conceded in the last half hour. Chelsea had the ball all night at the Gtech."