Axel Disasi’s late header spares Chelsea’s blushes in seesaw Brentford draw

Six days after losing at Wembley, Mauricio Pochettino’s position at Chelsea looked as precarious as ever. Away fans were taking his name in vain, alongside that of Todd Boehly while José Mourinho was regaled to the rafters. If only his team could show anything like the spirit of depleted Brentford. Cole Palmer, yet again Chelsea’s talisman, supplied the equaliser that Axel Disasi headed. The pressure is relieved for now, this weekend at least. The club’s myriad execs need not jump on an emergency Zoom call just yet but the tide sounded almost completely against the Chelsea manager.

Brentford’s state of flux is far more understandable; Thomas Frank’s squad has a chronic casualty list, Ben Mee now out for the rest of the season to rob the Dane of an entire first-choice defence. That Matthew Benham, their owner, has begun a search for new investment reminds of the high finance required to establish a Premier League club. Fortune and fitness play their part, too, but so too a togetherness absent in the first half and revived in the second. Yoane Wissa’s goal to put Brentford ahead was a spectacular moment of inspiration but also involved a determination to be first to the ball that few Chelsea players appeared to possess.

Contrast such taking of responsibility to Pochettino’s Friday shrug that club hierarchies give him little say – “in my place” – in Conor Gallagher’s future. Just the latest chapter in a Chelsea season where dysfunction has been a key theme. His team continue to mirror that diffidence, able to supply moments of quality like Nicolas Jackson’s excellent opener but also the collapse in concentration that allowed Mads Roerslev to equalise and Wissa’s goal, too.

Following a minute’s applause for Stan Bowles, Brentford the final club for one of this part of the capital’s favourite adopted sons, Gallagher took his place in midfield, alongside Chelsea odd couple of Moisés Caicedo and Enzo Fernández. Both continue to be enigmatic – to be polite – the second half saw the former berating Malo Gusto, his team’s prime performer, for a misjudged pass when his own showing was yet another exhibition of wondering what happened to the player seen at Brighton. Fernández was withdrawn from the action as soon as Chelsea fell behind.

Brentford’s attacking duo, Ivan Toney and Wissa, mostly on the counter, with their teammates sat deep, looked to be on each other’s full wavelength, even if Wissa misjudged the angle when played through by Toney. Wissa’s overhead from a Mathias Jørgensen flick was at least on target, though straight into Djordje Petrovic’s hands. Jackson had earlier missed a far easier opportunity when sent through by Fernández but forced wide by Mark Flekken he gave Jørgensen chance to clear.

Jackson, who had been mocked by home fans for a glaring miscontrol, would have his redemption. Gusto, looking Chelsea’s most determined player in sweeping up a couple of Brentford attacks, zipped in a cross from the right and Jackson headed in confidently, bisecting Jørgensen and Kristoffer Ajer to get there. A much derided striker had his 11th goal of the season and Brentford’s lack of defensive personnel was again looking costly.

The sight of Brentford submissively sitting deep jarred in the light of the combativeness that has been their trademark during their Premier League spell. Half-time and some doubtless choice words from Frank altered their outlook. Roerslev’s goal was drilled in after chasing loose ball that Disasi and Petrovic idled in watching drop after Sergio Reguilón’s blocked shot. When Vitaly Janelt struck the base of the post, the old Brentford were riding again.

Chelsea meanwhile reverted to the shapelessness that so angers their fans, identity lost in the club’s metamorphosis into an investment vehicle. The talent is present, the Chelsea qualities of an iron will to win and physical power are not. Fernández’s aimless hoik into the away end and Palmer’s miss after another fine Gusto surge were the best they offered under the constraint of a far higher press.

It was Brentford’s greater desire to win second balls that told for Wissa’s goal before Palmer’s dilettante cool under pressure that saved his manager. For now, at least. Few can be convinced that the next step in Chelsea’s evolution will include someone who has lost his club’s hardcore.