In the shadow of the Chiswick Flyover, on a chilly Monday night, who is the key to taking down your formidable Brentford opponents?

It turns out that Manchester City’s most technically proficient player, Phil Foden, scored a spectacular hat-trick to put his team in first place in the title fight.

 Phil Foden bagged a hat-trick to help Manchester City come from behind

 Erling Haaland made his first start since returning from injury

Foden collected the match ball for the second time in his career

Neal Maupay poked Brentford in front

Neal Maupay gave Thomas Frank’s Bees the lead once more. The previous season, the Bees had defeated Pep Guardiola’s Treble-winning team.

However, England player Foden was the star of the show on the night that Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne were paired in the City starting lineup for the first time since August.

When De Bruyne resumed playing, there were doubts about where or even if Foden would play.

It transpires that he performs everywhere. In particular, he scored a poacher’s hat-trick in the box.

With 45 goals scored in all, this game concluded the highest-scoring run of ten Premier League games ever, and Haaland, the Norse God of Goals, was not present in the starting lineup for the first time in two months.

Despite the fact that City currently trails leaders Liverpool by two points, they have an important game coming up—also against Brentford.

Guardiola’s team would not have selected this match, but they needed to take advantage of Liverpool’s loss at Arsenal.

Despite being just three points outside of the drop zone, the Bees’ aggressive play style continued to unnerve the champions until Foden’s equalizer in first-half injury time.

The return of Ivan Toney increased Brentford’s level of anxiety.

After serving an eight-month betting ban, the striker’s return has already shown promise.

There had been two goals: a confrontation with James Maddison over the difficult subject of miming dart throws, and a cheat storm involving foam versus Nottingham Forest.

Ruben Dias was quickly scurrying around as Toney was delivering a risky cross.

Mark Flekken twice denied Alvarez with long-range attempts, and he later produced a full-length stunner to deny Kyle Walker.

This matchup has one of the sharpest stylistic clashes in the Premier League, with Brentford tending to smash the ball and City possessing it like envious lovers.

But as Flekken demonstrated when he became the first goalkeeper to record an assist in the Premier League this season, there’s nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned wallop.

The Dutch goalkeeper pushed the ball forward, Toney legally stopped Nathan Ake, and all of a sudden, Maupay was unmarked, through on goal, and he steered his effort past Ederson.

It was Maupay’s sixth goal in as many games after he had a more than a year-long drought not too long ago.

Haaland nearly equalized right away, taking advantage of a careless pass, but Flekken stopped his shot by stretching out a leg.

The Bees goalie then launched himself to block a strong drive by Josko Gvardiol.

Flekken this, Flekken that was it. It was essentially “An Audience With Mark Flekken” at this time.

Maupay made a terrible late lunge at Rodri and got away with a yellow.

However, it wasn’t all that much worse than what Brentford was doing to City in an unethical manner.

The home crowd mistakenly believed that Bernardo Silva had fouled Vitaly Janelt after another long ball created panic, forcing Ederson to rush out of his zone.

As they responded and Bernardo came close to scoring, they were threatening a riot. Janelt was lying prone.

Sergio Reguilon then curled a cross-shot that Ederson had to improvise a save for, and before long, the Brazilian was lying on his back, making yet another desperation clearance.

It was hard to recall a time when the City keeper or his back four had appeared so uneasy.

But you’ll suffer this from Brentford. It would be more talked about if they were a northern company run by an old-school British management.

We soon found ourselves facing our old buddy Flekken, who was making his ninth save of the first half by diving to his left to turn a curler from De Bruyne wide.

Thus, it was the last thing we anticipated that the Dutchman would give up a simple goal during injury time.

After De Bruyne crossed the ball, a weak header from Ethan Pinnock found Foden, who chested down and stroked it past an unsighted Flekken.

Eight minutes into the intermission, the second was straightforward. After De Bruyne centering from the left, Foden, who was unmarked, walked past a sleeping Reguilon and headed the ball past Flekken.

Brentford came charging forward, as if stung by their own delay. Mads Roerslev drove hard and wide, Christian Norgaard and Maupay had attempts thwarted, and Toney skied a volley.

However, it was useless since Foden was back at it shortly after. Haaland received a pass from Rodri, who then laid it off for the England player to evade two defenders and poke past Flekken.