Brentford host Chelsea in the Premier League at Gtech Community Stadium on Friday evening (8pm kick-off BST, live on Sky Sports).
The west London derby is the Bees' final fixture before an extended international break.
Analysis, team news, match officials and more - here's everything you need to know ahead of the game.
Pre-match analysis
Stephen Gillett, Playmaker Stats: Two lively attacks go head to head at the Gtech
Xabi Alonso's Chelsea visit Gtech Community Stadium on Friday for a west London derby under the lights - and the early-season numbers point towards an intriguing meeting between two attacking sides who create chances easily.
Now 44, Alonso racked up 143 Premier League appearances during five seasons at Liverpool between 2004 and 2009, and he is back in the English top flight after a stellar start to his managerial career with Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid.
Alonso's return to England has certainly been entertaining: his four Premier League games in the Chelsea dugout have yielded 19 goals at either end - more than those of any other team so far this term.
Currently on seven points, the Blues sit a point ahead of unbeaten Brentford in the table, with much of the pre-match attention likely to centre on Chelsea's new-look front three of Cole Palmer, João Pedro and Morgan Rogers.
The Blues' attacking trio has amassed a combined eight goals and six assists already this term, with Rogers slotting in seamlessly after the £117 million switch from Aston Villa that made him the most expensive English player in history.
Dig a little further back into the Premier League archives and the threat posed by Palmer-João Pedro-Rogers snaps even more sharply into focus.
Dating back to the start of the 2024/25 season, João Pedro has 42 Premier League goal involvements (28G, 14A), Rogers has 38 (21G, 17A) and Palmer has 37 (27G, 10A). That's a combined 76 goals and 41 assists, with the trio's creative threat further underlined by all three ranking in the division’s top 20 for key passes this season.
Brentford, however, have been lively in attack themselves, scoring 15 goals in domestic competition this season - only Chelsea (18) have managed more among Premier League teams.
The Bees have also played a lower percentage of their passes backwards (13.3 per cent) than any other side in the top flight in 2026/27, an indication of the attacking intent that has characterised their unbeaten start.
Crucially, neither side has needed to dominate possession to create opportunities.
Brentford (17 per 90) rank third in the Premier League for shots this term, while Chelsea lead the division for shots on target (six per 90) - despite both the Bees (46 per cent) and the Blues (44 per cent) averaging under 50 per cent of possession.
Where the two sides differ slightly is in how those opportunities have been created.
Chelsea have been particularly dangerous on the break, leading the Premier League for shots (10) and goals (three) on the counter this term, while Brentford top the division for shots inside the six-yard box (nine) and shots from set-pieces (30).
Both sides will enter the contest knowing how they can hurt one another - the interesting part will be seeing who can execute best on the night.
Scout report
Dan Long, Sky Sports: Chelsea's frontline make them serious contenders
There is never a dull moment at Chelsea.
Hopes for 2025/26 were high after Enzo Maresca’s side won the Conference League, the Club World Cup and returned to the top four in the Premier League the season before.
But their start was nothing to write home about and, across the last seven league games of 2025, they won just once. That victory came against Everton on 13 December and, afterwards, Maresca said: “The last 48 hours have been the worst 48 hours since I joined the club because many people didn’t support us.”
There had reportedly been a breakdown in relationships behind the scenes. The 2-2 draw at home to Bournemouth on 30 December proved to be Maresca’s last - and on New Year’s Day, he left by mutual consent.
U21 coach Calum McFarlane took over in the interim, before Liam Rosenior left Chelsea’s sister club Strasbourg to sign a six-and-a-half-year deal at Stamford Bridge on 6 January.
At first, the change seemed to have worked a treat. Despite losing to neighbours Fulham in his first Premier League game, Rosenior oversaw four straight wins and lost only two of his first nine. But from 14 March to 21 April, the Blues lost five consecutive league games without scoring - their worst run without a goal since 1912. He was sacked on 22 April, just over three months after taking the job.
McFarlane assumed control again for the remainder of the season and was in the dugout for the FA Cup final, which Chelsea lost 1-0 to Manchester City.
They ultimately finished 10th, meaning a third season in four without Champions League football.
One day after the defeat at Wembley, Xabi Alonso was appointed as the club’s new manager on a four-year contract. He had been out of work since January, when he left Real Madrid, but his success at Bayer Leverkusen before that - particularly the unbeaten season in the Bundesliga - spoke for itself.
Chelsea’s hierarchy knew that and wholeheartedly backed him in the summer. He reportedly wanted to add experience and know-how, so veterans Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson came in - and so did more than £330m worth of new talent. Morgan Rogers’ £117m move from Aston Villa - an all-time record for an English player - made up more than a third of that.
They sold Enzo Fernández to Man City for £125m, too, but a deal for Monaco’s Lamine Camara, who was viewed as his replacement, fell through on Deadline Day. Regardless, Alonso later said he was “happy” with the state of his squad.
Rogers’ arrival has made Chelsea’s frontline - along with Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto and João Pedro - one of the most fearsome in the Premier League; they already have nine league goals and six assists between them.
Without European football to compete in this season, if they keep up such ferocity in front of goal, Alonso has the ingredients to make the club serious contenders again. A return to Europe should be a formality.
But then again, there is never a dull moment at Chelsea.
In the Dugout
Xabi Alonso
Born in Spain’s Basque Country, Xabi Alonso started out at Antiguoko, the club that produced fellow Premier League managers Mikel Arteta and Andoni Iraola.
Back then, the club acted as a feeder club to Real Sociedad and, in 1999, Alonso joined the San Sebastián-based team for whom his dad - former Spain international Periko Alonso - played between 1977 and 1982.
He made his debut in the Copa del Rey in November 1999 and went on to play 124 times before signing for Liverpool in 2004.
Over the next five seasons on Merseyside, Alonso played over 200 games and scored the goal that sent the 2005 Champions League final against AC Milan to extra-time, before the Reds won on penalties to complete what became known as ‘The Miracle of Istanbul’. He left for Real Madrid in 2009 and, while at the Bernabéu, won one La Liga title, two Copa del Reys and the 2013/14 Champions League.
Alonso closed out his career at Bayern Munich, where he won three straight Bundesliga titles under Pep Guardiola, before announcing his retirement in March 2017 on Twitter, with his famous “Lived it. Loved it” post. The following year, he began his journey into coaching with Real Madrid’s U14s, before he returned to Sociedad in June 2019 as the B team manager and guided them to promotion to the Segunda Division in 2020/21.
He left in the summer of 2022 and moved back to Germany to take over at Bayer Leverkusen. In his first season at the BayArena, Leverkusen finished sixth - but in his second, they won their first-ever Bundesliga title by winning 28 of their 34 league games and not losing a single one.
They also won their first DFB-Pokal since 1992/93 and finished as runners-up in the Europa League. Alonso returned to Real Madrid after the 2024/25 season but lasted only until January 2026, when he left by mutual consent. Four months later, he signed a four-year deal to take over at Chelsea.
The Gameplan
With Bobby Vincent
Bobby Vincent, senior football correspondent for Mirror Sport and football.london, explains how Chelsea are likely to be set up against the Bees.
"It is a difficult one to predict because Alonso has kept us guessing with either 3-4-3 or 4-2-3-1. I would expect the former," he told brentfordfc.com.
"That is what we have seen more of in the early part of the season. It allows Chelsea to have plenty of players in attacking positions but, as we have seen so far this season, the Blues are susceptible to being counter attacked."
Last Premier League starting XI v Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Martínez; Gusto, Fofana, Colwill, Hato; James, Lavia; Pedro Neto, Palmer, Rogers; João Pedro
Match Officials
Madley in charge for west London derby
Referee: Andrew Madley
Assistants: Craig Taylor and Nick Hopton
Fourth official: Lewis Smith
VAR: Jarred Gillett
Andrew Madley will be the man in the middle for Friday night's game against Chelsea.
It will be his third Premier League referee appointment of the season, with him previously overseeing Crystal Palace against Manchester City and, most recently, Nottingham Forest's 2-1 victory at Aston Villa.
Madley has had the whistle for 25 Brentford games in the past, with the Bees winning 10, drawing four and losing 11 of those clashes.
Memorable meeting
Brentford 2 Chelsea 2, (Premier League, 13 September 2025)
A late equaliser from Fábio Carvalho secured a point for Brentford in a 2-2 draw against Chelsea at Gtech Community Stadium.
The Bees took the lead through Kevin Schade in the first half, before Cole Palmer and Moisés Caicedo netted after half-time.
But it was the Bees who had the final word in the west London derby, when Carvalho tucked in at the back post after a long throw-in had been flicked on by Kristoffer Ajer.