Gary
Neville believes Chelsea underlined their Premier League title credentials
by surviving a late onslaught to beat Brentford 1-0 on Saturday Night
Football.
Edouard Mendy's stunning string of saves ensured Chelsea climbed back to the
top of the Premier League, with Ben Chilwell's strike sealing a nervy 1-0
win at luckless Brentford.
England full-back Chilwell's second league goal in as many games pushed
Chelsea back ahead of Liverpool in the standings - but Senegal stopper
Mendy's inspired showing secured the points.
"I think Chelsea can win the title," Neville told Sky Sports. "I know people
will say Manchester City or Liverpool and you can't disagree with that given
what they've done over the last three or four years.
"City's performance at Chelsea a few weeks ago was incredible, but I do feel
this Chelsea team are resilient and are tough to play against. I can't think
that any team in the league would like to play against them.
"I know Brentford have enjoyed the last 10 to 15 minutes, but this was a
tough game for them for the first 70-80 minutes. They couldn't get into it,
they had to change and they had a bit of joy at the end.
"That was a Chelsea team that had a few players missing as well, and they've
got so many to come back. They had so many good players coming off the bench
too, so I feel they've got a great shout of winning the title."
Bryan Mbeumo twice hit the post for Thomas Frank's ever-impressive Bees,
before Mendy conjured at least four last-ditch saves.
The former Rennes keeper thwarted Saman Ghoddos, Ivan Toney and Pontus
Jansson - before denying Christian Norgaard from the Dane's acrobatic
overhead kick.
Norgaard saw an effort cleared off the line by Trevoh Chalobah too, as
Chelsea refused to break despite some desperate defending.
Neville added: "Brentford brought [Marcus] Forss on to stop Ruben
Loftus-Cheek playing and all of a sudden, the game changed.
"Brentford completely altered the way they played in the second half. Mendy
was absolutely brilliant, and if you're going to win a title you need your
goalkeeper.
"There will be games in a season where you don't deserve to win, you don't
deserve to take a point but your goalkeeper makes two or three world-class
saves. Mendy was brilliant today and he has made the difference for Chelsea
since replacing Kepa Arrizabalaga.
"Chelsea were conceding too easily before. There were times when with Kepa,
goals were going in far too easy. Some of the goals were two metres inside
the post it felt. But it's a lot harder to score now against them."
Thomas Frank was proud of Brentford's performance against Chelsea, saying
the European champions were very lucky to escape with the win
After victories for Liverpool and Man City earlier on Saturday, the pressure
was on Chelsea to keep up the pace in what promises to be a tight title
race, and they returned to the top of the pile with their sixth win of the
season.
Despite the narrow win, Thomas Tuchel's latest tactical ruse of pushing
Mateo Kovacic and N'Golo Kante
into wider areas failed to pay dividend.
The German reserved special praise for his goalkeeper.
"This clean sheet is down to Edou today," the Chelsea head coach said.
"Maybe not the cleanest sheet we ever had but very important to get the
three points."
"Better to be [top] than the other way around but it's way too early and
there's too many teams that are close, so with every draw, with every loss
you can win or lose three or four positions. That's not the main point in
October.
"I'm happy about our performance against Southampton, a well-deserved win
today. I'm happy with the energy, I can recognise us, I'm happy with the way
we play and from here on we go.
"In these moments it helps if you have Toni (Rudiger) or Thiago (Silva) to
stay calm, to win decisive challenges... but we don't want to talk about
guys who are not here. We trust the guys who played and if you don't play
you can't get experiences and they did very, very good.
"In the last 25 minutes we need to talk where we can do better but there's
always room to improve."
'City still favourites, Liverpool have
best XI'
Neville also assessed the title chances of Manchester City and Liverpool,
who both recorded comfortable wins on Saturday.
He added: "You'd have to still say Manchester City are the favourites for
the title, and I picked them at the start of the season. But Chelsea have
played Arsenal, Tottenham, City and Liverpool and only lost once. They're
top of the league despite having a really tough start.
"[Romelu] Lukaku has not been at his best, either, which is another good
sign. They're top of the league and their star striker isn't firing when you
know he will at some point.
"The issue City have at centre-forward might just bite them. Liverpool have
the best first XI but I'm just not sure about them if something goes wrong
and they start to lose some of those starters, like they did last season
with Van Dijk or if Salah got injured. I think Liverpool are a little bit
exposed to that.
"I think Chelsea's squad is really strong and we've seen today that even
without a couple of centre-backs, they can produce a strong performance. I'm
saying City, but I'm saying Chelsea could go close, if not win it.
"You wouldn't be getting too carried away, particularly the teams who've won
it before in the Liverpool, City and Chelsea squads. They won't be looking
at the title race so early. What they'll be saying is 'let's get to January
and still be in contention'. You can't afford to fall too many points behind
City or Chelsea if you're going to win the title.
"I thought it was a big moment for Chelsea to come through those last 10-15
minutes today as there are many teams who won't have come through it. I
think it's too early for teams to gain confidence in others dropping points.
"But what you can't afford to do with these quality teams is drop too far
behind. I don't think we're going to get the high 90s in terms of points for
whoever wins the title as we saw with Liverpool and Manchester City a couple
of years ago.
"I feel the quality of the league is really high. Others have improved and
there will be points dropped.
"Liverpool and City set an outstanding standard a couple of years ago.
They're still at a high standard but not quite the same as they were back
then, when they were out of this world as the best two teams I've ever seen
in this league."
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