Haaland, Kane, Mbappé… Thiago.

Brentford striker Igor Thiago stayed hot on the heels of Europe’s most prolific forwards with a finishing masterclass at Everton on Sunday, firing his first-ever Premier League hat-trick.

Clutching the signed match ball after a breathless 4–2 win at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, the Brazilian was keen to share the spotlight with his team-mates, the Bees’ backroom staff and the travelling support. Noble instincts, for sure - but this was the Brazilian's day, and he will hog the headlines.

Now with 14 goals in 20 Premier League games, only Harry Kane and Erling Haaland (both 19) and Kylian Mbappé (18) have outscored the Brazilian across Europe's top five leagues this term.

The clinical manner in which he dismantled the Toffees underlined how efficiently Thiago is closing in on Bryan Mbeumo’s record Premier League goal haul for the Bees, which stands at 20.

Thiago's treble was a defining moment for the 24-year-old and propelled Brentford up to seventh in the table, leaving the west Londoners just four points shy of Everton’s neighbours Liverpool in fourth.

Post-match reflections from head coach Keith Andrews and captain Nathan Collins pointed to the driving force behind Thiago’s electric form: his work ethic.

Collins, the Bees’ other goalscorer on Merseyside, hailed his in-form striker as “one of the hardest-working men I’ve ever seen” when speaking to Sky Sports - and Thiago offers Brentford two strikers in one.

A target man who ranks among the Premier League’s top 20 for aerial duels won in 2025/26, the former Club Brugge forward also possesses the pace and mobility to punish teams in transition. Against Everton, the full range of his qualities was on display.

Having already cleared James Tarkowski’s goal-bound header off his own line, Thiago opened the scoring with precise no.9 play, drifting between Michael Keane and Vitalii Mykolenko before sliding a low finish past Jordan Pickford.

A dummy runner at the near post as Collins doubled the visitors’ lead on 50 minutes, Thiago then completed his hat-trick with two fine counter-attacking finishes - controlled strikes with both feet to cap lightning-fast Bees breaks.

Those goals confirmed Thiago as the spearhead of the most devastating counter-attacking side in Europe’s elite leagues.

With eight goals scored on the break in 2025/26, Brentford sit clear of the likes of Bournemouth, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid (seven apiece) and have already surpassed their combined counter-attacking output from the previous two seasons.

Thiago has now contributed 44 per cent of Brentford’s Premier League goals this campaign and is finding the net every 120 minutes on average, a return that makes his troubled first chapter in west London easy to overlook.

Sidelined by a serious knee injury during pre-season in the summer of 2024, Thiago actually made his debut for the Bees away at Everton - then at Goodison Park - in November that year.

A subsequent injury scuppered the remainder of last season, leaving Thiago an unknown quantity heading into the current campaign.

With his name up in lights alongside the best strikers in the game, that is certainly no longer the case.