It’s a tough road to be on
It was Frank Lampard’s day at Turf Moor again as his Chelsea side ran out comfortable winners, beating us 3-0 with one goal in the first half and two to follow after the break.
It’s Lampard’s second visit to Burnley as a manger and that’s two wins for him with seven goals scored and just those two late consolation goals we scored last season against him.
After today’s game he said: “I thought it was a very complete performance. They make it very difficult for you and you know you have to defend your box well, be very strong on first and second balls. I wanted that to be one focus and the focus to be how we keep developing on the ball. That’s what really please me today, some of the passing and movement in the team from minute one until the end of the game was very good and it feels like a nice step forward.”
Lampard added: “There was certainly balance there today and we worked on that. Even though we can’t work so much physically at the moment, we talked about it a lot yesterday and on the training ground. That’s part of the process when we’ve brought in new players. When you’re keeping clean sheets and scoring goals, you’re going in the right direction.
“The clean sheets are a great sign of a spine in the team. Thiago Silva and Edu Mendy have massively helped that but so has the mentality of the group with the way we’re defending. I’m not going to jump up and down after a win like this but it was a really positive day.”
It was hardly a positive day for Sean Dyche and Burnley with this third home defeat of the season and the team still looking for a first win anywhere. “It’s not been ideal; working in the market hasn’t been ideal and the injuries haven’t been ideal, but it’s all part of the tapestry of this football club,” he said.
“It’s never been an easy ride since I’ve been here and I’ve been down this road before. It’s a tough road to be on, but we have to make sense of it and the only way we can do, once players get fit, which is helpful, is to keep the mentality strong, along with the fitness levels and the belief in what we do. All those things have to come together to make sure we look after ourselves, but it’s tough against these sides.
“Chelsea have invested heavily and teams gel eventually. Sometimes you just have to take the punishment on a day when you are not right at it and they are. Of course, we want to win every game and we’ve shown on occasions that we can compete with these teams on a one off basis, but equally we have to realise that’s not actually the division we are working in; we have to get points from other games.”
He did think we should have had a penalty very early in the game for a foul by the Chelsea goalkeeper on Ashley Barnes. Of that he said: “We started pretty well and I thought it was a penalty on Barnesy, but our record in getting them is terrible, even though I’m told by the authorities that we don’t get treated any differently. I think it’s a penalty, but not remotely does that mean we win that game because Chelsea showed they are a top side and they punished us when they had to. They were the better side, but if we get that penalty, you never know because that gives you that extra little confidence to carry you through the game.
““In the first half, overall, we didn’t really get to grips with it, until we changed it tactically. In the second half we changed it again and I thought we did ok; the flow and the feel of the game changed until their second goal. Not for a second am I saying we were dominant, but we conceded another soft goal and we are conceding too many of those at the minute.
“After that, we had to open up to try and get back into it, but got punished with a mistake for the third goal, which you can’t do when you are playing against this level of opposition.”
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