The first game I watched this year boasted Arsenal against this Brentford team that I knew very little about, save for their late season heartbreak in the 2019-2020 season that kept them in the Championship. Those dramatics repeated themselves last year, with Brentford on the winning end, finally making it back to the top division since the late 40s. So imagine my delight on the opening day of the Premier League, when I put the game on my iPad to comfortably and calmly finish out my Friday workday, treated to Arsenal losing to this Brentford team (I don’t like Arsenal). Subsequently, they’ve gone on a bit of a tear, losing only once and drawing with Liverpool in an absolute thriller a few weeks ago. I hate it when Chelsea plays against these energetic pressing teams, because the only real way to beat the Blues is through pressing the crap out of the backline to force mistakes as they pass out of the back. That trash Juventus team successfully did this a few weeks ago to come away with a 1-0 win in Champions League, though really you could make the case that we got Chiesed, since he along with Mo Salah might be the most in form forwards in the world right now. In those types of games, we resort to long balls and fail to build up fast enough to break through heavy backlines. It was a giant problem under Frank Lampard and continues under Thomas Tuchel, though Romelu Lukaku’s hold up play helps.
Brentford came out today and did just that. Exacerbating this situation was the lack of experience on the backline, with Andreas Christensen holding down the castle in the central role with Trevoh Chalobah and Malang Sarr on either side of him. Chalobah took the Premier League by storm early this season, scoring twice and looking very steady back there, but Sarr spent this past week getting clowned on Twitter for getting smoked by defensive specialist midfielder N’Golo Kante in snippets of practice from the Chelsea Twitter account. We haven’t seen him much save for a shaking start in the Carabao Cup after Nice let him go for free to us last summer. Needless to say, this wasn’t the team I wanted us to depth peacock against given our recent run of losses before the international break and a shaky win against Southampton.
We got luck in the first half with Brentford coming forward as expected and attacking the crap out of that left side with Ben Chilwell finally back in the starting eleven, still getting his feet under him defensively and Sarr. Both held up pretty well today, with Sarr actually looking better defensively than Chilwell, even as Tuchel clearly gave Chilwell instructions to play the same role as Marcos Alonso, hoping again to manage depth in the midst of the Alonsossance. This meant a lot of volume for Sarr and while he had some shaky moments (like allowing Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford a free run in the 75th minute that barely grazed the post), he actually impressed given his lack of experience with this team. Given what happened in the last 15 minutes of this game, where Edouard Mendy proved he’s the best goalkeeper in the world, I’m not sure the depth really is there in the backline, but hey at least we won. I will say Chalobah’s save off the touchline when Mendy got literally tackled then held on the ground was magnificent and showed a real big picture understanding of the game. Christensen was honestly masterful in this game and has been since Tuchel arrived, especially in the second half of last season. He arguably could have been man of the match in the Champions League final, coming on early for the injured Thiago Silva and repeatedly stonewalling the best offensive team in the world at the time. Today he solidified himself as the long term answer to Silva, who’s struggling with health and COVID travel restrictions, despite his Tom Bradyesque fitness. Christensen clearly knelt at the feet of Silva to learn the center back position, looking like a Silva clone today. Halfway through the game, I felt as confident with him back there as I do Silva, which is incredible.
This team frustrates offensively with no consistency or real fire save for Mason Mount and that one Chrisitian Pulisic game before his annual injury that takes way longer to come back from than it should. Tuchel gave the creative keys to N’Golo Kante today in the midfield, a real coaching masterclass, allowing Kante the freedom to get forward, rewarding him for his contributions in defense. It made for an awkward build up, despite Kante’s considerable skills in that area. I almost feel like Tuchel watched that viral clip of Kante dribbling through Chelsea defenders and went with that as his offensive game plan. Chelsea have scored 16 goals this season, TEN of them by defensive players or wingbacks, the rest mostly by Lukaku. Chilwell by the way added one today as part of that ten in a chaotic goal from a deflected pass meant for Lukaku, which Rom setup beautifully for Chilwell. I’m happy for Kante and Rueben Loftus-Cheek was fucking incredible playing as a meld of Kante/Jorginho and I’m pretty sure if he stays healthy, Saul Niguez will only play in Cup games this year. Offensively it’s been a mess this year. Timo Werner has no imagination and still can’t finish; did it again multiple times today. The xG god that he is continues to bear nothing but frustration and I’m waiting for Lukaku to say something shitty about him in an interview. Lukaku created a wonderful opportunity in the 37th minute, setting Timo up AND screening the goalie with a defender draped on him, only for Timo to put it way too far over the crossbar. With Pulisic out, I’m not sure what Callum Hudson-Odoi has to do to get playing time, especially as Reece James still deals with injury. Just get him in there somewhere, he has to be better than Timo, who’s highlights today included two separate passes way behind Ben Chilwell after he took corners, allowing no further danger with everyone in the box after those corners were cleared and an embarrassing moment as he tried a dump and chase to himself to outpace Brentford’s Ethan Pinnock who was barely playing professional soccer three years ago, only for Pinnock to bitch slap him off the ball. I’m sorry, Timo is fast, but if you can’t outpace a guy like Pinnock, who’s an ESPN underdog story waiting to happen, what chance do you have against someone like Joao Cancelo or Andrew Robertson or hell, Alex Sandro in a few weeks.
Last thing about this game as I referenced earlier was Mendy’s man of the match performance, which he really only earned in the last 20 minutes of the game. Brentford, while creating chances throughout the game, struggled to actually get shots in until about the 75th minute. They proceeded to pepper the shit out of the goal, with chance after chance as Mateo Kovacic and the rest of the midfield struggled to keep pace and hold onto the ball. Kai Havertz did next to nothing after coming on for Lukaku in the 77th minute and Brentford relentlessly pressed any sort of play out attempts, forcing Chelsea into rare kick and shit form as they spent the last five minutes punting the ball out. Mendy spent the last 20 minutes making one world class save after another, solidifying his place as maybe the best free agent signing ever in the history of sports, if he hadn’t already, possibly better than Drew Brees. I mean it took the Saints four years to win the Super Bowl after signing Brees and Mendy was instrumental for Chelsea winning the Champions League in his first freaking season. Despite the love Kepa is getting now, especially for that incredible Super Cup performance, Mendy is so much better in case that wasn’t known already. He’s even improved considerably in his time at Chelsea, coming in as a skilled but inexperienced keeper, who faced very few shots in his few months. He proved his prowess last fall against Manchester United in a 0-0 draw that saw him come out of the shell of the backline as ManU bombarded him with shots, all of which he saved. Since then his foot skills have gotten better, playing out of the back with incredible deftness, rather than looking for long balls. His long ball improved as well, with more accuracy to provide fast break opportunities to the offense. Today though he proved why he’s the best keeper in the world, as Brentford barely challenged him most of the game, however he maintained composure and came up as a giant in games waning minutes. He stayed engaged despite facing few challenges and sprung to life to repeatedly deny a goal. It’s a resiliency this team showed time and again since he’s been there, but not always in these smaller scale games against theoretically inferior PL competition. I admire so much that he knew how important it was for Chelsea to come out of the international break strong, hit the ground running, hold onto the top of the table and re-assert themselves this week in the Champions League.
Bo's Gamut 