Kevin Schade shone as his hat-trick helped Brentford dominate Leicester 4-1 at the Gtech Community Stadium in the Premier League, showing incoming Foxes boss Ruud van Nistelrooy the size of the job at hand.
Despite Facundo Buonanotte opening the scoring in west London, Yoane Wissa grabbed his eighth of the season before Schade sparkled with three strikes to inflict more misery on the struggling Foxes, who van Nistelrooy will now assume control of.
A victory for Thomas Frank’s men helped them back to winning ways following last week’s goalless draw at Everton, with four goals on Saturday putting their season tally to 26 after 13 matches.
After a quality showing in their 2-1 defeat to Chelsea last week, Leicester’s Mads Hermansen continued his impressive shot-stopping here with a terrific tipped save to deny the unmarked Schade’s header in the opening minutes.
The save set the tone for a first half where the visitors were under the cosh, but they kept tight at the back and scored on the counter with their first chance of note in the 21st minute.
After the pacey Jamie Vardy was released in behind, the Foxes captain showed great strength to hold off Ethan Pinnock with a shoulder barge, before his ball across the six-yard box to Buonanotte was tapped home for 1-0.
But a similar move down the other end saw the Bees find a quick-fire leveller after the restart. Schade continued to be involved and he utilised his explosive speed to stride away from James Justin down the left flank.
After he spotted the surging run of Wissa, he picked out the striker with a precise low cross for an easy poacher’s goal into the empty net to equalise.
But Brentford were not done there as they continued their ruthless finishing to storm into a lead. Despite their goal, Leicester had been lethargic as they invited runners in the form of Bryan Mbeumo to exploit left-back Luke Thomas.
Once the winger used his creativity to jink inside and to win a yard of space, his fizzed pass into the box bobbled into the path of Schade who crashed his effort past Hermansen and into the bottom left-hand corner for 2-1.
Schade’s dominance saw him successfully double his tally, putting the match to bed for the Bees with a composed finish in first half added-time. The German attacker, who had not scored prior to this match, received a splitting pass by Mikkel Damsgaard which allowed him to produce a deft chip over Hermansen for his third goal contribution.
The 23-year-old was not done there. In the 59th minute he was played one-on-one by Nathan Collins before his side-footed finish into the bottom right-hand corner saw him claim his hat-trick.