Brentford went to Stamford Bridge and defeated west London neighbours Chelsea on Saturday; their third successive win at the home of the Blues since they gained promotion to the Premier League in 2021.

The Bees took advantage of a sleeping Chelsea defence to open the scoring by maximising their greatest threats: a set-piece, an aerial duel and a shot from inside the six-yard box.

Only Everton (2.3) have managed more shots per game from inside the six-yard box, while only the Toffees and two other clubs have won more aerial duels than Brentford’s 17 per game on average so far this season. 

So, a well worked throw-in that found Bryan Mbeumo able to stand up a cross at the back post for on-rushing defender Ethan Pinnock to steam in and head home would be the ideal, archetypal goal and a brilliant example of how complex, yet paradoxically relatively simple, moves have often been Brentford’s secret to success in the top-flight – especially against some of the so-called ‘big boys’ in the division.

Brentford’s expected goals in Saturday’s game of 2.46 was comprehensively better than Chelsea’s 1.65. The idea, therefore, that there was a reliance on specific routines and moves to trouble their opponents is wrong. 

Exploiting the hybrid role that Marc Cucurella was playing, having been used as a right-back in Chelsea’s recent improvement in terms of results and performances, was also key. 

55 per cent of Brentford’s attacking moves came down the right-hand side with Kristoffer Ajer able to support the likes of Mathias Jensen, Mads Roerslev and Mbeumo in simply overloading that area of the field.

The hosts had 17 shots to seven and 14 in open play to just four from Brentford but a suggestion that this result was fortuitous would be to ignore that being, genuinely, all part of the plan. 

Chelsea, despite all of that basic stat dominance, very rarely got near the Brentford goal with no shots inside the Bees’ six yard-box and nearly a third of their 17 efforts limited to being from long distance. In comparison, all of Brentford’s efforts came in the Chelsea box.

This was a match between a side very much in transition, attempting to build something where the foundation may not quite yet be there, up against a team quickly becoming an experienced, top-flight side using all of the genius tactical pragmatism that Thomas Frank can offer.