Brentford claimed just their third Premier League away win of the season in style as Igor Thiago’s hat-trick inspired them to a rampant 4-2 victory at Everton.
Keith Andrews’ team have struggled on the road in 2025/26, yet they ran riot at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Having gone ahead through Thiago’s close-range finish early on, Brentford cruised into a 3-0 lead with two goals in the space of a minute at the start of the second half. Nathan Collins headed home from a corner, then Thiago doubled his tally.
Beto pulled one back for Everton, but a dismal day for the Toffees was capped off when Thiago ran through to complete his hat-trick in the 88th minute.
Thierno Barry snatched another consolation goal for Everton, who dropped down into 12th, with Brentford surging into seventh place.
How the match unfolded
A bright Everton start was undone when James Tarkowski's sloppy pass was intercepted by Vitaly Janelt, and he produced a fine cross for Thiago to finish in the 11th minute.
Everton went close to equalising before the break as Collins inadvertently connected with a cross from Jack Grealish, but Caoimhin Kelleher made an instinctive stop.
David Moyes made two changes at the break, with Merlin Rohl and Beto coming on for Everton, but they went 2-0 down when Collins headed in from Janelt's corner in the 50th minute. Thiago just beat the offside trap to deftly add Brentford's third goal a moment later.
After Kelleher denied Tarkowski, Beto gave Everton hope with a fine header from Grealish's cross in the 66th minute.
But the home side's pressure came to nothing, and more shoddy defending allowed Thiago to charge clear and round off his hat-trick.
Barry nodded in from a teasing Grealish centre in the first minute of stoppage time, but by that point, Brentford were already set to celebrate a richly deserved victory.
Sorry start to 2026 for Toffees
Moyes' men ended a three-match winless run in midweek with an impressive 2-0 victory at Nottingham Forest, which the Scot called one of his best results since returning to the club last year, given the number of first-team players missing from his squad.
But Everton went from one extreme to the other here.
The fit-again Michael Keane was back in the starting XI, but his lack of pace was exposed time and time again by Brentford’s quick attackers.
Both Keane and Tarkowski failed to cover themselves in glory for Brentford’s opener, and they, along with Jake O’Brien, were all at sea throughout as Everton found themselves chasing the game from early on. A capitulation at the start of the second half, after Moyes had introduced attacking changes, was where the match was truly lost.
Grealish, starting the match after recovering from illness, at least provided a bright spark, providing his first assists since August.
The Toffees will hope to put things right on Wednesday when they are back at the Hill Dickinson Stadium to face Wolverhampton Wanderers.
European dream alive for Brentford
Brentford played out a dull stalemate with Tottenham Hotspur on New Year's Day, but they showed what they can do in style this time out.
They scored from their first chance, and as good as Thiago's finish was, Janelt deserves plenty of credit for reading Tarkowski's poor pass and delivering a delicious cross.
Thiago, though, will rightly take the headlines. He bullied Tarkowski and Keane all afternoon, and could easily have scored his second goal before the break if not for Jordan Pickford, who also denied Kevin Schade in the first half.
Andrews’ side demonstrated their prowess from a set-piece once more through Collins’ header, and Thiago then demonstrated just why he can only be bettered by Erling Haaland this season when it comes to Premier League goals, finding the back of Everton's net with another two high-quality strikes.
Mikkel Damsgaard was immense in midfield for Brentford, who now have 30 points from 20 matches. Having been tipped by some to struggle following the departures of Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa last summer, the Bees are buzzing around the European spots ahead of facing Sunderland next at home on Wednesday.
Club reports
Everton report | Brentford report
What the managers said
David Moyes: "I'm disappointed we didn’t play better. We were just a bit short in some areas. We were disappointing defensively today and not as strong as we have been.
"We are short on a lot of cour creative players which showed at times. [But] we didn’t do our defensive duties as well as we could have done.
"When your centre forwards score goals that's what we want. Today they didn’t have the support and back-up. If we’d kept a clean sheet we could have won. But no complaints, Brentford deserved the victory."
Keith Andrews: "We were excellent. Personality, conviction, energy, spirit. At a very difficult ground."
On Igor Thiago's hat-trick: "Strikers live and breathe [goals] and get a lot of confidence from it. He’s played well without scoring recently. His performance today was sensational. He deserves the accolades.
"It’s about consistency. I feel the team, squad and club have taken good steps forward in the last few weeks. They have earned that, to play in this way.
"We are very respectul of each game. We just keep working hard. A real appetite to improve all the time and push each other and see where we go."
Next PL fixtures
Key facts
Everton have lost back-to-back matches at the Hill Dickinson Stadium for the very first time. Overall, the Toffees have now lost four of their last six at home, after going unbeaten there in their first five in all competitions (W3 D2).
Brentford scored their first goal from a corner in the Premier League, with what was their 96th corner, becoming the last of the 20 sides to net by this method in the competition this season.
Six of Thiago’s 14 Premier League goals this season have put Brentford 1-0 up, with only Erling Haaland (10) scoring more openers than him. In fact, only Bryan Mbeumo (nine in 2024/25) and Ivan Toney (eight in 2022/23) have scored more opening goals for the Bees in a single Premier League season than Thiago’s six.
Grealish provided his fifth and sixth assists in the Premier League this season, 127 days after his previous two against Wolves in August.