Levi Colwill Urges Chelsea To Improve Defensively After Brentford Defeat

Levi Colwill urged Chelsea to improve defensively after their winless run in the Premier League reached three matches following a 3-0 defeat to Brentford on Friday night, September 18.

Jaidon Anthony, Igor Thiago and Fabio Carvalho scored at the Gtech Community Stadium as Brentford continued their unbeaten start to the season and moved above Chelsea into third place. Chelsea slipped to seventh with seven points, five behind leaders Arsenal.

Chelsea had enjoyed an encouraging start under Xabi Alonso, scoring 19 goals across their first four league matches. However, Joao Pedro’s absence due to a knee injury reduced their attacking threat against Brentford, while Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers struggled to make an impact.

Alonso made four changes to his starting XI, handing Jordan Henderson his first Chelsea start against his former club. The visitors produced a quiet first half, but Brentford came out stronger after the break and capitalised on Chelsea’s defensive weaknesses.

Colwill said Chelsea must use the international break to address their problems and warned that the team cannot depend on its attacking players to rescue them from difficult situations.

“It was tough. Maybe we overexposed ourselves [at 1-0 down], and they hit us on the counter-attack, which they’re so good at,” Colwill said.

“Second half we weren’t good enough. We’ve got a lot to work on over the international break. Maybe at times we’ve been bullied [at set-pieces] and we have to improve at that. We can’t rely on our front three to pull us out of danger; we all need to help each other. We’ve got a lot of room to improve.”