Chelsea v Burnley: Premier League – Live! | Football

12 min Chelsea’s likable, Kovacic playing a double off Jorginho and advancing on the open shooting lines. But a slightly hard touch coaxes him into Hudson-Odoi and a slightly low pass persuades his man to go back inside, his shot blocked back for a corner, coming to nothing.

11 min Westwood drills a good ball towards Cork on the opposite side of the area. It’s difficult to read the flight through a screen, it looks like Cork might shoot him down, but he tries to get back, suggesting otherwise and Chelsea clears.

10 minutes Brady attacks Alonso and extends to Lowton. He has three men in the area, but chooses not to cross, and the attack is broken.

9 min Werner is cutting with decent intention and takes a ball from Alonso but it turns into trouble.

8 min But this is cute, Werner shooting left and throwing a pass to Mount, who gives two lovely, right-handed touches on the swing, hitting his man and making room for a curling iron, which he deposits tall and wide.

6 min “I think this will be a difficult afternoon for Chelsea and particularly uncomfortable and unbearable for Tuchel,” says Nigel Matthews, “especially if he hasn’t done his homework well at Burnley. I imagine Sean Dyche is licking his lips at the thought of Chelsea’s fragile midfield and improvised full-backs; You may never have a better chance of improving your meager record at Stamford Bridge and recording a rare (first?) league win there. . “

I also believe it. I’m sure Tuchel knows a lot more about football than I do, and he might as well have the ability to train his players to play well in this formation. But to my uneducated eye, it doesn’t seem like the best use of the materials available to him.

5 minutes Kovacic throws a ball overhead, looking for Mount behind, but Pope comes to pick it up.

4 min Wood takes possession in a decent position between the lines, but his ball to Vydra is too soft and Chelsea carry it.

3 min McNeill seems to be coming from the left, playing Wood, but Chelsea forces them back down the field and Mount runs hand in hand through the straw, swept into a kind of strip.

2 minutes No they are not! Now they are fixed with three in the back.

1 minute AHA! Chelsea play a back room, with Alonso as the left back. A 4-4-2 makes more sense than the 3-5-2 I thought they were in; Mount is on the left with Hudson-Odoi on the right.

Tuchel wears pouf, hat and hairnet, as if he were in the Arctic. Imagine the lack of respect in the locker room if you were directing Kieran Tierney.

“As a Chelsea fan,” admits Lee Madden, “I think this lineup will be a 3-4-1-2 system, with Marcos Alonso and Hudson Odoi providing width and Mount just behind Abraham and Werner. Mount has been excellent this season and fully deserves his place in the team, but we’re still not really sure what the best midfield combination is or if Mount can be a high-level player ‘between the lines’. Our team is really a hodgepodge (unsurprisingly) with some quality players, but a lack of clarity in the overall approach, which I think has led to many players losing form. “

Yes, I agree with almost all of that. I haven’t seen Chelsea as much as those who watch them every week, but I have seen a little more impressed by Mount than anyone else. I’m not sure it’s an elite number 10, but I think it could be a really good number 8. I’d play it there with Ziyech and Hudson-Odoi on the flanks, but then you have to find a way to get Havertz in as well. Like you say, it’s a bit messy.

“Surely if we speak Yiddish,” email Jonathan Ginzburg, “So the fastest association is תומאס טאָכעס – Thomas Tuchas – and variations on it.”

BT shows us a tape by Nick Pope, who I’m absolutely sure is superior to Jordan Pickford. Tangentially, it’s a funny situation for Gareth Southgate, who has so many options; you will probably have to decide for some, even if that necessarily excludes others for no good reason.

Sean Dyche, whose sideboards seem to be thicker than his number one everywhere, says he’s been rebuilding a squad in full shape. He doesn’t know what Chelsea will do, but it’s up to his team to answer. He confirms that Brownhill is injured and Rodriguez is rested, but also points out that Vydra has looked good.

Burnley, for his part, lacks a bit of rhythm in attack, but I’m sure they will be aiming for Chelsea’s right side, where Azpilicueta slows down and Hudson-Odoi is not used to defending. The latter’s average position against the Wolves was ahead of Giroud, which will be a factor in how the game went, but also his training and lean. I would expect a lot of crosses to the front post.

With Werner and Abraham on the side, Chelsea will at least have a threat behind it, which was not the case against the Wolves. Against Burnley, however, there probably won’t be much room to attack, and cunning could be more useful than pace.

I guess the problem for Chelsea is that N’golo Kanté can no longer be trusted to chase like two men. This is how Pep Guardiola balanced De Bruyne and Silva’s game, two eights, with Fernandinho, and one of the reasons he sees Manchester United struggling to balance creation with safety.

Easier said than done, dare I say.

When I look at Chelsea, I can’t help but feel that at least one attacker is missing. His best football this season probably came playing 4-3-3 with two forward-thinking midfielders, but set up like this, there is a lot of creative responsibility at Mount, while Hudson-Odoi will have to defend, especially against Dwight McNeill. . On the other hand, playing in two could allow Werner to do what he did for Leipzig, but I’m not sure there is enough creative courage to give him the opportunities he needs.

There are worse ways to fight 3-5-2 than 4-4-2. Although you would expect Chelsea to dominate in midfield, two forwards in three centers allow Burnley to look at attacking the spaces between them and the wings, and the wings behind the ends means they can target the spaces in the corners that 3 -5- 2 necessarily allows it. I think Chelsea will have a difficult afternoon ahead.

As for Burnley, Sean Dyche makes two changes from Wednesday’s brilliant win against Villa. In midfield, Jack Cork replaces Josh Brownhill, who is injured, and in attack, Matej Vydra replaces Jay Rodríguez.

From the looks of it, Chelsea still have their three in the rear system, which, together with the arrival of Tuchel, is good news for Antonio Rudiger, who retains his starting position. Ben Chilwell, however, no. He seemed surprised to be a substitute in the middle of the week, and is now sitting off to the side from the start, with Marcos Alonso on the left back; Callum Hudson-Doi remains on the right.

In midfield we can also see what seems like a preference, Jorginho and Kovacic holding their spots to do whatever they do, with Mason Mount being asked to provide the oomph that was lacking against the Wolves. However, it is not clear if this is a political decision, as Hakim Ziyech is absent from the team, presumably injured, while Timo Werner and Tammy Abraham replace Kai Havertz and Olivier Giroud.

Chelsea (your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine): Mendy; Rudiger, Silva, Azpilicueta; Hudson-Odoi, Jorginho, Kovacic, Mount, Alonso; Abraham, Werner. Subs: Arrizabalaga, Christensen, Kante, Pulisic, Zouma, Giroud, Chilwell, James, Havertz.

Burnley (as if he couldn’t guess): Father; Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Pieters; Brady, Westwood, Cork, McNeil; Vydra, Wood. Subs: Peacock-Farrell, Gudmundsson, Stephens, Rodríguez, Bardsley, Long, Dunne, Benson, Mumbongo.

Your friend and mine: Graham Scott (Oxfordshire)

The proforma of what to do in the first place after accepting a mid-season management job is simple and short: not much. Well, no one told Thomas Tuchel.

His name sounds like it’s part of an old Yiddish epigram – “Hey a broch, look at it, spinning like some kind of fancy Thomas Tuchel” – and it wouldn’t be far from the truth. The team he chose to play against the Wolves in the middle of the week was not the team of a coach giving his new team a chance, but the team of a coach who has been watching his players closely, forming definite ideas about what it should be and how it should be. do. Ever since Terry Venables arrived in Leeds in 2002, to immediately replace Nigel Martyn with Paul Robinson while sending Harry Kewell to the fore, no new arrival seemed to have been planned from afar, and that was a closed season date.

Maybe Tuchel just picked an XI that he thought would beat the Wolves, who play a very particular and very slow three at the back, but that doesn’t seem likely or proper. The side that sends today will tell us a lot about their plans for the immediate future.

And at Burnley you will find a team in good shape, having beaten Liverpool and Villa in their last two league games. But more than that, they are a side that knows exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it; If Tuchel can impose something similar on his, he will be of great help in deciding how this afternoon goes.

Start: 12 pm GMT