Chelsea were made to work for their first Premier League win under Liam Rosenior, but the eventual routine look of a 2-0 scoreline, complete with a first clean sheet of his reign, will have hit the spot.
While Brentford had chances through Mathias Jensen, Mikkel Damsgaard and Kevin Schade, Chelsea were deserved winners and scored either side of the interval through Joao Pedro and then Cole Palmer.
For Chelsea, not only a first league win under their new head coach but a first in the league in over a month, since a remarkably similar victory: the 2-0 win over Everton in mid-December.
Rosenior claims first league win and clean-sheet
Top performances will ideally come in time, but the right result was what Chelsea and Rosenior most craved at Stamford Bridge.
The 41-year-old head coach will have been delighted at his side’s defensive resilience for the long time they held their one-goal lead, at their ability to win a spot-kick and double the advantage, and at the solidity once more to hold on and keep a clean sheet.
The display was far from textbook.
Brentford began the day in fifth place and above their west London rivals, and they did cause problems. Jensen and Yehor Yarmoliuk picked up good positions and supported the forward Schade and Igor Thiago, who grew into the game.
On balance, though, Chelsea were deserving winners. Tosin Adarabioyo was partly handed a start in order to limit the Bees' aerial threat from set plays and long throws. He was exceptional, first to everything before going off with a suspected injury. Enzo Fernandez led the way in midfield.
Attackers off the mark for 2026
The goalscorers will have pleased Rosenior, too.
Attackers want to score, and many in blue have not clocked up the sort of numbers they will have wanted to or were expected to yet this term. Joao Pedro and Palmer each netted their first goals of 2026.
The former’s opener came after 26 minutes, an instinctive strike off his supposedly weaker left foot which was initially ruled offside until VAR took a second look and adjudged the Brazilian, quite rightly, to have held his run well. It was an unerring finish, his eighth of the season.
Palmer looked tired for much of the match, in which he remained on the field of play for the full 90 minutes — a rare sight indeed this season. But the Englishman was the beneficiary of Caoimhin Kelleher felling Liam Delap at a stage in the game when Chelsea were looking increasingly unlikely to score a second from their own invention.
Instead, a gift, Palmer firing home from the penalty spot. It was his fifth goal of the season — a first of the calendar year.
Fans protest against the owners and leadership
Two hours before kick-off, a section of the Chelsea support met at Britannia Gate outside the stadium to protest against the sporting leadership and the way the BlueCo consortium that owns Chelsea are running the club.
The protest had been planned for weeks by disgruntled fans unhappy with Chelsea’s direction of travel, but the eventual turnout was relatively low — no more than a couple of hundred supporters were present to voice their views.
Those present chanted the name of the club’s last head coach Enzo Maresca, whose name was rarely chanted by fans when he was in the job. Fans also sang the name of their previous owner, Roman Abramovich, who was forced to sell Chelsea in 2022.
There were chants of “We want our Chelsea back” and “We don’t care about Clearlake, they don’t care about us”. One supporter held aloft a homemade banner which read: “Shove your model up your *ass”.
