The Premier League’s two most potent offences lock horns on Sunday evening, as Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea welcome new signing Ivan Toney and seventh-placed Brentford to Stamford Bridge on Sunday night.
Both added another four goals to their respective tallies following entertaining wins last weekend, with Brent playing in what has a record so far in the future.
Some will isolate this game as one that must produce goals since the two teams are among those that have scored the most goals, but this might be misleading.
A third of Chelseas total Premier League goals this season have been scored at Stamford Bridge and only Southampton has traveled to away grounds and scored fewer times than Brentford’s five.
Enzo Maresca’s side begin the weekend in second, yet their home record was pretty decent only scoring the victory more often than not, 3 out of 7.
Their previous victory here at the Bridge was a very emphatic one, a 3-0 over Aston Villa, and that was part of an eventual four Premier League match winning streak – which is the equal of the longest any team in the top flight this season.
All of those victories have been achieved with the Blues scoring three or more goals at the back of supreme form of Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson and they can extend this sequence of winning four games and scoring three or more goals in the process for the second time only and for the first time since their championship season of 1954-55.
A 4-3 victory at London rivals Tottenham Hotspur the previous week raised questions about their back line however and a team as porous up top as Chelsea can ill afford to be if they are to challenge come the end of the season.
Still this win took them to second outright after Arsenal was held to a draw by Fulham and Maresca’s team was now only four points behind Liverpool after a scheduled match with Arne Slot’s side Everton was called off.
Chelsea took a relatively young squad to Kazakhstan to face Astana on Thursday, and triumphed 3-1, securing their position in the Conference League's final 16, allowing Maresca to rotate heavily against Shamrock Rovers next week.
That means the Chelsea manager will have a fresh XI available, even if he is a little fatigued after a 16-hour round journey to Almaty and back, as they look to end a strange streak against Brentford.
Chelsea triumphed at the Gtech in Brentford's first Premier League season in 2021-22, but have lost all five subsequent meetings, including three at Stamford Bridge.
Brentford have the opportunity to become the first club since Leeds United in the 1970s to win four consecutive Premier League games at the Bridge, having won 4-1 on their first visit and following that with two 2-0 victories.
The Bees have never been in a better position to build on that, having had their best start to a Premier League season after 15 games, with 23 points already on the board.
However, only one of those 23 points has come away from home, against a struggling Everton, with Southampton the only other team in the division yet to win on the road.
They may have beaten Newcastle United 4-2 at home last weekend, but Thomas Frank's side was convincingly defeated at Villa Park on their most recent away trip.
Despite winning only three away league games in 13 months, Frank has stated that they are not concerned about their away results, but it will become a problem if goals and results at home dry up.
Vitaly Janelt was out last week with a slight injury and should be able to play this week, while Mathias Jensen is also expected to sit out owing to a hamstring ailment.
Pedro Neto was in the squad on Thursday since he will be suspended this weekend for a yellow card against Spurs, thus Noni Madueke will take his position on the wing.
The only other change could be at right-back, where Malo Gusto is in line to start after being introduced at halftime in North London and could replace Romeo Lavia.
