Key events
70 min: Brentford make a double change, replacing Kayode and Yarmoliuk with Hickey and Sangare.
68 min: … Schuster flicks on accidentally, nearly setting up Colwill, who can’t force home from amid a six-yard-box melee. Then Brentford counter, but Thiago isn’t able to make enough space to shoot from the edge of the box. This game has suddenly blossomed.
67 min: Rogers nearly bursts past Kayode along the byline to the left of goal, but makes do with a corner. One corner leads to another, and …
66 min: Neto dribbles in from the right and makes himself space to shoot … but takes a split second too long to hit the button, and his shot’s blocked and cleared.
65 min: Xabi Alonso cuts a pensive figure on the touchline. Still no Premier League clean sheet for Chelsea under his yoke. “Just as the bookies were about to pay out on 0-0,” quips Richard Hirst.
64 min: Chelsea are suddenly all over the shop, and Ajer is allowed to dribble halfway the length of the pitch, reaching the edge of the box before laying off to Thiago, who can’t get a shot away. The ball breaks left to Lewis-Potter, who floats a cross into the arms of Martinez. The Gtech bouncing.
62 min: That was some delivery by Damsgaard, Martinez unable to get anywhere near it, and a well-worked set piece overall. Keith Andrews 1, Austin MacPhee 0.
GOAL! Brentford 1-0 Chelsea (Anthony 61)
Damsgaard curls the corner long from the left. Schuster rises at the far stick, and sends a header across the face of goal. Anthony can’t miss for a couple of yards. It was as simple as that!
60 min: The game goes end to end. Chavarria laces a shot over the bar from a tight angle on the left – Palmer in the middle isn’t best impressed – then Schade goes up the other end and wins a corner. From which …
59 min: Another long ball from Brentford, which Damsgaard cushions into the path of Thiago, who sails a long-range shot over the bar. The 1980s Wimbledon side made this sort of carry-on look much easier than it actually is.
58 min: Kelleher goes long for Thiago, who nearly gets on the end of the pass. But Lacroix and Fofana combine well to usher the ball back to Martinez.
56 min: Ajer and Lewis-Potter combine down the left, hoping to send Thiago clear further up the wing. But Thiago can’t control Lewis-Potter’s final flick, and there’s another goal kick.
54 min: Damsgaard tries to find Thiago in the middle with an outside-of-boot cross from the left. Clever idea, badly executed. Goal kick.
53 min: You say that, but Chelsea’s xG has soared from 0.39 to a whopping 0.4. It’s all happening!
52 min: Rogers has a shot deflected out for a corner. Henderson hoicks it in from the right, but that’s easily cleared. Both teams showing a bit more purpose, if not quite verve, in attack since the restart. “Given Chelsea’s hereto woeful defence, I scrapped Lacroix and Martinez from my fantasy league team and brought Thiago off the bench,” admits John Parry. “This game is my fault.”
51 min: Yarmoliuk whips a cross in from the right. Anthony heads goalwards. Martinez tips over acrobatically. The ball perhaps shaves the top of the bar. But the flag goes up … and again, had that gone in, VAR might have got the old rulers out. Anthony looked onside to the naked eye.
49 min: Palmer plays a cute reverse pass down the middle for Welbeck, who momentarily strides clear of the Brentford back line, but is soon caught up by Schuster, and then the flag goes up for offside anyway. Had Welbeck gone through and scored, VAR might have had something to say about that flag. It was tight.
48 min: Chavarria crosses from the left. The ball’s headed behind by Schuster. Chelsea try another MacPhee Special, working the corner back to Chavarria, but his outswinger sails harmlessly out for a goal kick. In the dugout, the aforementioned set-piece coach fumes silently. He is beyond livid with Chelsea’s set-piece travails.
46 min: Kayode throws long from the left. As the ball comes over, Martinez hugs Thiago, then falls backwards. He’s taking a big chance on the referee blowing his whistle … which he does. But there really wasn’t much in that. Argentina 1, Brazil 0.
Brentford get the second half started. No changes. The xG at the break? 0.39 apiece.
Half-time postbag. “So far this has been a game where some exciting things almost, but not quite, happen. Many times I’ve thought, oh, that could’ve been good, but at no point has my heart beaten at anything other than a resting rate” – Kári Tulinius
“I think Caoimhin Kelleher let that one roll under his foot just for divilment, as they’d say in his native Cork. For kicks, for entertainment. To stop people drifting off next door to the cemetery at half-time” – Justin Kavanagh
“Stinker” – Dave Estherby
“Surely I’m not the only one who’s been wondering which early 20th-century revolutionary Keith Andrews resembles? (It’s the hair.) It came to me just now as the camera cut to him in his not un-revolutionary-styled jacket: Grigori Zinoviev, leading early Bolshevik, eventually purged by Stalin (though that description could describe several individuals). I’d like to know how many committees Andrews has set up at the Gtech” – Rob Knap
HALF TIME: Brentford 0-0 Chelsea
We were promised goals!
45 min +1: Nothing happens in that additional minute.
45 min: Lewis-Potter dribbles purposefully down the left and nearly breaks into the Chelsea box. But that man Fofana continues to work his patch, and closes the door just in time. There will be one additional first-half minute.
44 min: Welbeck chases after a ball down the left. Ajer gives him a little tug on the shoulder from behind, and it’s surely a free kick and a booking, but the referee waves play on. Welbeck can’t believe it.
42 min: Kelleher claims Henderson’s corner without fuss. The MacPhee Effect yet to kick in with Chelsea. Brentford counter quickly, and Lewis-Potter tries to steer a shot into the top right from his position on the left. Easy for Martinez.
41 min: Chavarria turns on the jets to make off down the left. He cuts back for Rogers, in space just inside the box. Rogers hooks a fierce shot towards the right-hand side of the goal. Kelleher is going the correct way, but the ball pings off Schuster and out to the left of goal for a corner instead.
39 min: Lewis-Potter bustles his way in from the left and lays off to Damsgaard. He’s hoping for the return down the inside-left channel, but instead of being released into the box, watches in irritation as Damsgaard lashes a wild shot over the bar. To be fair to Damsgaard, he was getting the Big Enthuse from the crowd.
37 min: A bit of space for Yarmoliuk, just to the right of the Chelsea D. He gets Brentford’s first effort on target, but it’s a scuff towards the bottom left, and an easy job for Martinez to gather.
36 min: Chavarria loops long down the left. Rogers, his back to goal, 50 yards out, splits the Brentford defence with an outrageous backheel down the channel, releasing Welbeck … but the flag goes up correctly for offside. A shame for aesthetes everywhere, because that could have been one of the all-time assists.
34 min: … but we’ve oversold that.