International break saps Chelsea’s momentum as Blues suffer heavy defeat to Bretford

Chelsea's bid to win the Premier League crashed in December following a poor run of form. However, until now, they seemed destined to finish in at least third place.

That, however, is currently in doubt following their latest defeat to Brentford. The Blues were torn apart by the Bees in front of their teeming home fans at Stamford Bridge.

With Arsenal in imperious form and closing in very fast, Thomas Tuchel’s side could end the gameweek just two points above the Gunners.

The heavy defeat is made even worse as they have a first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals against Real Madrid coming up in midweek. Going into such a big game on the back of a drubbing certainly doesn’t bode well for the Blues.

Blues battered by Brentford

On Saturday, 2 March, Chelsea were completely battered by Brentford. It was a game where they appeared to have dropped their performance level after taking the lead.

Following a goalless first half, Antonio Rudiger got Stamford Bridge buzzing with a strike from long range to open the scoring. However, the Blues went to sleep after that.

Two minutes later, Brentford restored parity through Vitaly Janelt and a sloppy 10-minute period from Tuchel’s side saw them completely capitulate. Christian Eriksen took advantage of Chelsea's disorganization to make it 2-1. Janelt then added his second of the day to give Brentford the needed cushion.

Substitute Yoan Wissa put the icing on the cake with a thumping finish to seal an impressive 4-1 victory for the visitors. They left the Chelsea fans frustrated and red-faced.

International break saps Chelsea’s momentum

Chelsea’s latest collapse is yet another testament to how the international break seems to sap the morale out of teams that are in form.

Despite all the off-pitch distractions, including owner Roman Abramovich’s issues with the UK government, the Blues were doing fine. They were on a six-game winning run in all competitions.

However, the March international break took the steam out of their form and the players returned jaded and lackluster.

Tuchel told Sky Sports after the game:

"It was strange because we were working hard for the first goal and we know how hard it is to create chances against Brentford. Once we had [the opener] we stopped defending and gave three goals away in 10 minutes. It was very untypical and killed the game for us."

He added:

"We got punished. They made the most of these 10 minutes, which is maybe also not normal. It's a summary of strange events. It's on us. It's our fault."

The Blues are out of the title race as they are 14 points behind leaders Manchester City with a game in hand. However, finishing third is still within their reach. They’ll need to quickly recover from this setback to give themselves a chance of finishing the season strongly.