Those early-season thoughts that Chelsea might be the team best-placed to challenge Arsenal are beginning to look extremely over-optimistic. The two chaotic wins with which they began were always difficult to read: they might have been useful points picked up on the way to a more solid structure, or they might have represented evidence of significant problems. After three games without a win, and 12 goals conceded in five games this season, it's beginning to look like the latter.
At the final whistle, Keith Andrews tipped his head back and roared at the sky, celebrating Brentford 's first home win over Chelsea since 1938. They remain unbeaten, coherent and disciplined, and moved up to third in the table. The comparison is impossible not to draw: as one side flail in an orgy of structured spending, their far less wealthy neighbours thrive with a clear plan and sense of direction. "It was a performance I felt was bubbling," said Andrews. "I could see it in the players' eyes over the last two days. They were very focused, very determined."
Related: Brentford v Chelsea: Premier League – live
Such is the state of perpetual flux at Chelsea that the usual homilies about the benefits of stability always seem a little redundant when applied to them. With 11 new signings this summer maintaining the sense of the club as a trading hub, learning the names of everybody in the dressing room has probably been a greater priority than worrying too much about boardroom wrangling. But, still, their first game since Todd Boehly and Mark Walter agreed to sell their 12.8% stake in the club to the major shareholder Clearlake Capital felt significant. At the very least, a more harmonious boardroom should be beneficial.
Boehly, the great disruptor, who arrived blithely telling English football it was doing everything wrong, has departed having achieved very little other than splurging £300m on players who didn't fit and giving Raheem Sterling a £325,000-a-week contract in his shambolic spell as de facto sporting director. Four years on, after 60 arrivals, do Chelsea look any more like title challengers than they did then? It was, in truth, very hard to say what this looked like, other than a team that is every much still under construction. Jordan Henderson made his full Chelsea debut at his former club, while Danny Welbeck , Pep Chavarría and Valentín Barco made their first league starts.
Barco, whose overenthusiastic celebrations after Argentina's winner against England at the World Cup earned him a post-match slap from Jude Bellingham , was booed with impressive consistency from the home fans. The lesson was clear: if you're going to be a major irritant while in possession of a distinctive shock of hair the colour of burnished copper, there will be consequences. Emí Martínez was jeered as well for the crime of being Argentinian. Henderson, by contrast, was treated relatively gently, his booing as a returnee more sporadic and muted, tending to the perfunctory.
The pattern for Chelsea was a familiar one: a fast start, fading to something a little scratchier. The opening, for the second successive game, did not produce an early goal, although Pedro Neto would have given them a ninth-minute lead had it not been for a sharp save from Caoimhín Kelleher .
"We have dropped our consistency, our competitive mentality in the second half," said Xabi Alonso. "We have not been able to keep our level. When you lose shape you are out of control. To be able to understand and know what it takes to be competing to the end, it's a process and it takes time."
The longer the game went on, the less assured Chelsea looked and a Brentford opener arrived just after the hour. Perhaps inevitably, it came from a dead ball; the stats had suggested that Brentford this season had been creating significantly more chances from set plays than they had converted. As modern corner routines go it seemed very straightforward, Jannik Schuster climbing above the diminutive Barco to head Mikkel Damsgaard 's corner back across goal, where Jaidon Anthony nodded in from close range, his first goal since his summer move from Burnley .
Chelsea belatedly applied some pressure but, although the final minutes were played largely in the Brentford half, they created little beyond corners, as Brentford maintained their composure and structure.
The second goal arrived seven minutes from time. Damsgaard, perhaps the tidiest player in the league, led the break, playing in Kevin Schade . Martínez saved his side-footed effort but Igor Thiago guided an awkwardly bouncing ball inside the post for his first goal of the season. Fábio Carvalho made it 3-0 in added time, slamming in a cross from Schade, who had been left inexplicably unmarked on the left after a long throw was half-cleared.
As Brentford begin to consider that European qualification is a real possibility, Chelsea remain what they have been since the takeover: a work in progress – and, particularly at the back, it feels that progress has a long way to run.
