If they did not hold the mantle already, Brentford cemented their status as Chelsea’s bogey side with a third straight Premier League win at Stamford Bridge. This past week Mauricio Pochettino acknowledged Chelsea remain far away from where he expects them to be and on this evidence there is still a long way to go. The brutal reality is they have won one of their past 13 home league matches and overcome only Crystal Palace, Luton and Leeds here in the competition this year.
If anything encapsulated Chelsea’s frustrations it was the sight of Jesús Pérez storming into the Brentford dugout to have words with the analyst Bernardo Cueva, a contretemps that triggered the referee, Simon Hooper, taking charge of his first top-flight game since the embarrassing VAR error in Tottenham’s win over Liverpool, to award the Chelsea assistant manager a red card.
