Stamford Bridge played host to recently promoted Burnley in the 3rd week of the League. Chelsea winning both their previous ties would want to continue their perfect start to the season. On the other hand Sean Dyche’s men would be very confident on back of their surprise win against the Merseyside club last week. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful afternoon for a great game of football
Chelsea started the proceedings, attacking from left to right. The match started off with both team trading possession in the midfield. Chelsea looked to keep their shape whenever they lost possession, a feature of Conte managed sides. The first goal of the game came in the 9th minute, as soon as Burnley conceded possession Eden Hazard was quick to break and on back off a brilliant individual effort, curled the ball inside the far post beating Heaton causing an uproar at the Bridge.
After the first goal it was an all Chelsea’s display of domination which was going to be the story for the rest of the afternoon. The men in Blue almost doubled their lead within the first quarter of an hour when a build up play led to a shot on goal, again by the captain of Belgium national team, just to be cleared off the line by Mee.
The Blues domination continued as they kept 3/4th of the possession. Tom Heaton saw off another header attempt by the Chelsea captain just before the half an hour mark. Moments later an effortless link up play between Willian and Oscar presented Diego Costa with an easy chance, but the striker fired it straight to the Burnley keeper.
As the minutes were drawing close to the end of First half, Willian got the ball swinging in at the right side of the attacking area and kept his composure to complete Chelsea’s 2nd.
The last attempt of the first half came from the Clarets. Being 2 goals down and having been laid back for the entirety of the opening spell, Sean Dyke’s men finally decided to make some noteworthy passes to register their 1st attempt at goal in the 44th minute. However, the effort was shot wide at the far post by Arfield.
That was it for the 1st half, 45 mins of brutal domination by the home side reminding Burnley that they wont find it easy in the top division of the English league.
The visitors started the 2nd half with some intent having an attempt on goal, but failed to keep it on target launching it way up in the stands. After this it was again back to the grind with Chelsea dominating possession and stacking up the number of attempts on goal.
Just 7 minutes into the 2nd half Costa was again delivered a golden opportunity to put his name on the score-sheet. But yet again the Spanish striker failed in his attempt to score. The best chance of the 2nd half was presented on a platter to the Chelsea’s Captain, Hazard’s volley was saved by Heaton(the man of the match for Burnley) rather uncleanly and Terry was unable to put away a simple ricochet off the shot-stopper.
The Burnley manager introduced double substitution in the form of O’neill and Gudmundsson replacing Defour and Arfield, as Chelsea were looking to get away with the game and put it way beyond Burnley’s reach. However, no ploy from the away team’s boss was working. The rest of the afternoon panned out the same way with the Stamford bridge outfit holding all the aces.
Burnley introduced their 3rd and final substitution after Marney got injured and was replaced by Tarkowski. There was brief spell of panic created by the visitors when they won 3 back to back corners. But failed to make amends from either of them.
Chelsea having taken their foot off the gas, introduced their 3 substitutes late in the game just to provide the extra energy in the final 3rd. Willian, Costa and Hazard were replaced by Moses, Batshuayi and Pedro respectively.
After having failed to convert a number of easy chances, Victor Moses coming off the bench scored the 3rd for the blues in the 89th minute and rounded off a perfect display of a Superior team.
The Blues will be ecstatic after this victory. Especially, seeing Hazard back in form and the new man Kante filling in the Makelele role perfectly. However, the Burnley side is left with a lot of work to do if they have to remain in the top flight of English football.
