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Newcomers Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner were on the roster and established artists like Reece James and N’Golo Kanté also impressed as Burnley was outclassed and Chelsea moved up to fourth on the table.
Tottenham had to work very hard to win here at the beginning of the week, but a fluid and star-studded Chelsea made it look easy. Burnley was never in the contest, the Chelsea pass makes his usual physique and directness superfluous, and while he won’t come across lavishly funded Champions League teams every week, Sean Dyche must be concerned with just one point to show. for six games and no goals yet scored at home.
Burnley almost got off to a good start when Ashley Barnes stayed on the side to pick up Matt Lowton’s diagonal ball from the middle behind Kurt Zouma. After a reasonable first touch, one would have put money on the striker to at least hit the goal with only Édouard Mendy to beat, but by lifting the ball over the goalkeeper, Barnes managed to clear the crossbar as well.
The afternoon had already started badly for the visitors when Christian Pulisic was injured in the warm-up, forcing Timo Werner to move up from the bench to the left of Chelsea’s three forwards. Werner, Kai Havertz, Reece James and Hakim Ziyech laid siege to Burnley’s penalty area in the first half hour, testing their opponent’s defensive determination with a series of penetrating passes and crosses, most of them aimed at Tammy Abraham in the middle. The center forward brought Nick Pope’s first save of the game with a looped header and could have opened the scoring midway through the first half had it not been for a warning block from Charlie Taylor, but that was when Abraham released the ball with the back. to the goal that Chelsea made the breakthrough. Ziyech fired for the first time to beat a possibly blind Pope from the edge of the area and register his first Premier League goal. Pope will be unhappy that he couldn’t keep out a less-than-thunderous shot that didn’t even find an unreachable corner of his goal, though he could only have seen the ball late when the shot went through Dale Stephens’ legs.
Werner had a chance to hit two on the interval hit when he was in position for a simple shot off the far post, only to see Kevin Long touch the ball far enough to produce a rebound that ended up safely in Pope’s arms. Burnley could be considered unlucky to disallow just one goal. Chelsea hadn’t created a string of chances, which might be a concern for Frank Lampard considering the overwhelming amount of possession they enjoyed, but they had barely allowed the hometown to sniff the ball out of their own half. Chris Wood and Barnes were virtual spectators most of the time, with the latter even resorting to moving around to try and find space.
Nonetheless, Dyche made a substitution on offense at halftime, sending a third forward in Jay Rodriguez in place of the industrious Stephens. It made little difference. Mason Mount brought in a save from Pope after a riveting sequence of passes that saw half a dozen Chelsea players meet and meet again with reckless ease. It was the kind of fluid football that deserved a goal, although in fact it probably deserved a more incisive conclusion. Mount’s shot, when it came, was from the edge of the area.
Despite their superiority, Chelsea needed a second goal, a fact that was emphasized when Barnes shot wide and James Tarkowski too high around the hour. When it arrived, just a couple of minutes after those opportunities from Burnley, it was not from fluid football but from an inability to defend a set piece that Dyche, a former central midfielder, will find infuriating. Mount swung around a corner from the right and while Wood did land a bunt, it was not decisive and in no way hindered Zouma’s ability to score with a firm header.
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In a matter of minutes things took a turn for the locals when an Ashley Westwood pass down the left was attacked by James, who found Ziyech for a perfectly timed pass that freed Werner in the box. The former Leipzig player had time to transfer the ball to his right foot so that an exposed Pope would have no chance, and suddenly Burnley was looking at a hideout. Although that never happened, Olivier Giroud was correctly singled out for offside after beating Pope with a good finish, Chelsea is flying high again. Burnley is still looking for his first win, and next is Manchester City.
