Home again after a week on the road
At the start of the season, we kicked off with three home games but we’ve become used to being on the road recently with games at Salford City, Newcastle United and Luton Town but now it’s back home with Chelsea the visitors to Turf Moor.
This is a fixture that hasn’t brought too much success in the Premier League. We night have won once and drawn three times at Stamford Bridge but In the eight home games against them we have won just one point, that from a 1-1 draw in February 2017 when Robbie Brady scored with a sensational free kick on his home debut.
We’ve managed to concede 23 goals in those eight games while scoring six times; our five other Turf Moor goals against them scored by Steven Fletcher, Scott Arfield, Ashley Barnes, Jay Rodriguez and Dwight McNeil, those last two coming late in a game in 2019 when we were already 4-0 down.
Our last home win against Chelsea came back in April 1983 when Billy Hamilton scored twice, either side of a Terry Donovan penalty. That was the last time we met outside of the Premier League.
But tomorrow is another day and we must go into it with a bit more confidence that was surely gained at Luton on Tuesday when we came through to record our first league victory of the season and even from the last home game against Manchester United when, although beaten, we played well.
Despite that midweek win, we are still in the bottom three although now three points ahead of Sheffield United and one point clear of Bournemouth. We’ve also moved alongside both Everton and Luton on points with them above us on goal difference.
Coming home on the back of Luton, he added: “We’re back home after winning on Tuesday and our confidence is high going into it. Hopefully we can carry the momentum into the weekend. A win always makes everything much better. It takes a bit of pressure off.”
Vincent Kompany hasn’t made too many changes this season for Premier League games, never more than two from one game to the next, and I suspect it could be the same tomorrow with a very similar line-up to the one that kicked off at Kenilworth Road.
There has been no news of any new injuries so I expect us the squad to include most of the players involved on Tuesday with potentially Dara O’Shea and Anass Zaroury to be added.
The team at Luton was: James Trafford, Connor Roberts, Ameen Al-Dakhil, Jordan Beyer, Charlie Taylor, Sander Berge, Josh Cullen, Josh Brownhill, Luca Koleosho, Lyle Foster, Zeki Amdouni. Subs: Arijanet Muric, Vitinho, Hannes Delcroix, Jack Cork, Aaron Ramsey, Mike Trésor, Wilson Odobert, Jacob Bruun Larsen, Jay Rodriguez.
Chelsea were the only club in the Premier League to make more signings in the summer transfer window than us, beating us by one with sixteen new recruits. They have a new manager too in Mauricio Pochettino and all the changes have potentially led to a more difficult start than they expected. As things stand they have won twice in their eight league games to date, they have drawn twice but have lost on three occasions.
Two of those defeats have come at home against Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa; the other was in their first away game of the season at West Ham. They’ve beaten Luton at home and last Monday won at Fulham.
They’ve had problems with forward players missing and that’s potentially led to them scoring just seven times in total in seven games, but they have had no problems at the other end of the pitch. Only Manchester City have conceded less goals than the six that have gone into Chelsea’s net and three of those were at West Ham. They’ve conceded just twice in their last five games.
Tomorrow they have Nicolas Jackson available after he served a suspension but neither Reece James nor Malo Gusto who are still serving suspensions. Mudryk and Moises Caicedo returned from injury for that game at Fulham; Pochettino has confirmed both will be available as will Carney Chukwuemeka.
However, a number of players remain out. Benoit Badiashile and Trevoh Chalobah are now in partial training but all of Ben Chilwell, Marcus Bettinelli, Wesley Fofana, Christopher Nkunku and Romeo Lavia are recovering from injuries and all still in rehabilitation.
The Chelsea team against Fulham was: Robert Sánchez, Marc Cucurella, Axel Disasi, Thiago Silva, Levi Colwill, Conor Gallagher, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernández, Cole Palmer, Armando Broja, Mykhailo Mudryk. Subs: Djordje Petrovic, Raheem Sterling, Noni Madueke, Lesley Ugochukwu, Ian Maatsen, Deivid Washington, Alfie Gilchrist, Josh Brooking, Alex Matos.
LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE
Four the third time in four visits, Chelsea scored four on the last occasion we played them at Turf Moor in March 2002.
It ended 4-0 but you could never have predicted that scoreline at half time. We’d been outstanding and deserved far more than the 0-0 scoreline we took into the interval. We needed to come out in the second half and turn that form into goals and three much needed points.
It didn’t happen. Chelsea were a goal up within two minutes of the restart and seven and a half minutes later, the game was up for Burnley with Kai Havertz adding two more.
It left us still in 18th place in the table.
The teams were;
Burnley: Nick Pope, Connor Roberts, Nathan Collins, James Tarkowski, Charlie Taylor, Aaron Lennon, Josh Brownhill, Ashley Westwood, Dwight McNeil, Wout Weghorst (Ashley Barnes 78), Jay Rodriguez (Maxwel Cornet 63). Subs not used: Wayne Hennessey, Matt Lowton, Phil Bardsley, Kevin Long, Bobby Thomas, Jack Cork, Lewis Richardson.
Chelsea: Edouard Mendy, Trevoh Chalobah, Thiago Silva, Antonio Rüdiger, Reece James (Mateo Kovacic 70), N’Golo Kanté (Ruben Loftus-Cheek 70), Jorginho, Saúl Niguez, Mason Mount (Timo Werner 78), Christian Pulisic, Kai Havertz. Subs not used: Kepa Arrizabalaga, Andreas Christiansen, Malang Sarr, Kenedy, Hakim Ziyech, Romelu Lukaku.
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