Thiago made his full debut for Brentford in the 4-2 win over Newcastle at the Gtech Community Stadium earlier this month. Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa, Nathan Collins and Kevin Schade scored for The Bees while Alexander Isak and Harvey Barnes’ goals proved to be little more than a consolation.

While Thiago didn’t score in the match, he certainly made things difficult for Newcastle’s defence and Fabian Schar in particular with a physical attacking display. But the 23-year-old missed Brentford’s 2-1 defeat against Chelsea in the following match due to a ‘minor injury’.

While Brentford boss Thomas Frank hopes the striker will be back available for the trip to St James’ Park on Wednesday night, Thiago’s time in England has so far been plagued by injury. Since his £30million club record arrival from Club Brugge in the summer, Thiago has missed 15 games in all competitions due to injury.

Following the defeat at Stamford Bridge, Frank said: “Igor has a minor injury which keeps him out for this game. We are hopeful he could be available for Wednesday.”

Newcastle have reached the Carabao Cup quarter-final for the third successive season and will be looking to secure progress to the final four on Wednesday night. Eddie Howe’s side will be without the suspended Sean Longstaff for the match while Callum Wilson, Emil Krafth, Nick Pope Jamaal Lascelles and Sven Botman are unavailable due to injury.

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A clash between two prolific west London teams went Chelsea’s way at Stamford Bridge on Sunday evening – but visiting Brentford turned in a competitive performance which their manager Thomas Frank afterwards heralded as “very impressive”.

Goals either side of the break from Marc Cucurella and Nicolas Jackson gave the hosts a two-goal cushion and, despite the Bees piling on plenty of pressure in the second half, a late Bryan Mbeumo strike wasn’t enough to earn his side a share of the spoils.

Facing the Premier League’s top scorers on their own patch, Frank opted to switch up tactically and deployed a 5-3-2 formation to try and stifle the creative talents of an expensively assembled Chelsea side orchestrated by in-form playmaker Cole Palmer.

In large part, the Bees succeeded in their quest and, despite Chelsea firing in 26 shots over the course of the encounter, 10 of those were off target and eight were blocked, numbers that highlight the “good defending” Frank later referenced in his post-match comments.

Brentford piled on the pressure themselves in the second period and, on another day, could easily have left SW6 with a point in the bag: Christian Nørgaard’s volley, which drew an outstanding save from Chelsea keeper Robert Sanchez, and substitute Fábio Carvalho’s close-range shot off the woodwork underlining the threat posed by the Bees.

Although his troops had to go back home empty-handed, Frank felt Brentford were “unlucky” not to come away with a point and there were plenty of positives to take for their Danish head coach.

Chief among them was the all-round nature of the performance and the depth of the squad that delivered it, which the Bees boss also alluded to in his post-match team talk after the win over Newcastle United.