Chelsea show steel to go with style in Premier League title race

Chelsea stayed top of the table with the sort of victory at Brentford that often wins you a league title

Edouard Mendy helped Chelsea to an important three points (Action Images via Reuters)

As any football manager will attest, winning titles isn't always pretty.

There will be days when you blow another team off the park and win by a cricket score, matches where everything clicks and falls into place. There are others, however, where you have to dig in and really earn your victory, even those you don’t ultimately deserve.

Both, of course, are worth exactly the same in the league table and it was one of the latter for Chelsea on Saturday as they kept their place at the Premier League summit with the hardest of hard-fought wins away at Brentford.