Bryan Mbeumo helps Brentford rub salt into neighbours Chelsea’s wounds

If Mauricio Pochettino is to become Chelsea’s manager he will presumably require a guarantee of time to turn this shambles around. His inheritance will be a monument to bloated, decadent short-term thinking whose consequences were evident again in a fifth straight defeat. Brentford had not landed a shot on target before Bryan Mbeumo’s searing effort sent locals streaming towards the exits but were already ahead, and comfortable, via a Cesar Azpilicueta own goal eight minutes before half-time. Frank Lampard had looked to grind this one out but met a brand new low in an abject season: he has not coaxed the faintest tune from these players since returning and their run-in will represent an agony of playing out time.

Rarely can a league game have commenced amid such a subdued environment here in recent years. Pockets of empty blue seats were visible around the stadium; a battle for west London supremacy had done little to fire imaginations among the home support and it was a stark reminder of the ungainly fall Lampard was brought in to correct.

His selection, although hamstrung by injuries to Reece James, Mason Mount and Kai Havertz, hardly set pulses racing either. He had chosen a similar lineup to the side that attempted to combat Real Madrid eight days previously: a team of workers with the intended function of mucking in and stopping the rot. N’Golo Kanté and Conor Gallagher were deployed closest to the nominal striker Raheem Sterling and the bench was packed with mercurial attacking arrivals from earlier points in the campaign.

Ideas were accordingly few early on. Brentford, on their own slippery run of form but fresh from showing signs of life in drawing with Aston Villa, sought to force the issue without showing much