Closed Burnley 1-3 Chelsea

[Spike 12,049]

Boring old Chelsea. 19th century football from Mourinho. Pathetic, disgraceful football. Parked the bus.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Woke up still grinning about that Cesc assist

Barbara you are awesome.

Back off bro, she's mine.

Are you two hitting on my wife?! Banned.

You realize that, as an Arab, I now have the right to hang you by your junk over my house?

Watch your backs, boys...

@Barbara, honey, you want me to hang them by their junk?

[lionsden 4,689]

Only 12 votes for hazard wow.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Yes he did

That's a very valuable lesson he needs to learn. He can't say bad words....unless it is about scumpool and slippy G!

[CHOULO19 24,332]

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

Woke up still grinning about that Cesc assist

Are you two hitting on my wife?! Banned.

You realize that, as an Arab, I now have the right to hang you by your junk over my house?

Watch your backs, boys...

@Barbara, honey, you want me to hang them by their junk?

Scary...

[Muzchap 8,966]

I'm still happy but tinged with Anger over another shit referee performance - can you appeal Yellow cards? If not - then that needs changing! Costa was clearly fouled.

A little gutted that we didn't put them to the sword - Goal Difference might count come the end of season.

Definitely loved our increase in passing tempo - still needs work, but we can see where it's headed

This is what managerial stability brings. Solid improvements in style and understanding -,rather than a new manager every season with new ideas

[cosmicway 1,260]

There was a secret message behind yesterday's refereeing:

earthmen prepare to meet thy doom

[different level 1,056]

Awesome example of attacking play on the first game of the season. I'm very happy with the link up play between our midfield, the attacking trio and the striker. Cesc was the one to light the fuse and make that connection look so good in this game, his fantastic pass to Schurrle for the second goal, the way he bossed the midfield and that well taken corner for Ivanovic's third. Hazard had a good game. trying to create spaces for himself, had a key part for the 2nd goal and again the player with most dribbles in the match. Greatly impressed with Costa, the way he terrorized the defense and how he smacked that goal. He was unlucky to be booked by that cunt Michael Oliver.

However, the way we defended was not the most convincing. I noticed the first half we were leaving too many open spaces for their attacks and I thought that's because we're applying more attacking minded football, but then when we were supposedly shutting the game down the second half that trend continued and we let them create too many shooting opportunities.

I am also unhappy with the way we conceded especially with the way we covered the offside after the corner and then the defenders surely could've done a better job at blocking Arfield's shot.

Another thing, probably Sean Dyche didn't see how much we struggled last season when a team parks the bus on us. He went too bravely and tried to attack us, leaving a lot of spaces for our fast wingers to exploit and we raped them in the space of 15 minutes to make a comeback and secure a healthy lead. I'd like to see how we'd fare against a side that tries to do a WHU on us with our current attacking options.

[Fulham Broadway 16,407]

hardly any sleep and on a coach for 13 hours yesterday, but worth it. Worthy performance of what i can remember

Completely pissed stopping at Warwick and Birmingham on the way, great support. Ashley songs, Lampard songs , ole ole ole chelsea. Hour to get on the Motorway coming home, back at 4 00 am. We're gonne win the league

[Jase 43,479]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x240k17_mourinho-a-lot-of-good-things_sport

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x240jvu_fabregas-controlled-the-game-well_sport

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x240j3y_schurrle-feeling-good-hd_sport

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x240ji3_ivanovic-good-reaction_sport

[bababoom 4,478]

I wouldn't really worry about our defence, Burnley played with two big, physical strikers. It's not everyday John and Gary both have to deal with that. Burnley are also very direct, they hardly ever play it on the ground when pressured, very much of the old school style of football.

Jose touched on it but we couldn't fully introduce our high pressing game beacuse they don't play out from the back, instead they would instantly look for the two big strikers. If you remember last season when we played Southampton at home we couldn't cope with their pressig so instead we bought on Ba and went direct, this meant that we could never be pressed beacuse as soon as we got that ball we would lump it in the box.

In the PL the majority of teams try and play out from the back so expect to see our hig pressing a lot this season.

[Special Juan 27,104]

Tell you what is severely underrated is costa's pace, he is really rapid across the ground. I didn't notice this until seeing him live last night.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

I hope people can come to grips with the fact that with this new attacking nous we will not be as solid in the back. We will be better than most but don't expect last years rock solid defense to be on display week after week... Defense is about the team shape and right now we're looking to get more people in attacking positions which will in turn leave us a little exposed.

[robsblubot 3,229]

Great game!

striking to me was the constant movement and how our players (esp mid) moved in blocks, which allows for short passing as opposed to those, overused (last season) long balls. Long balls are a valid tool, but their much lower completion rate can destroy a team's possession esp away from home.

Matic, Fabregas, and Oscar were fantastic in midfield. There was a bit of a gap between defence and middle and I reckon this happened because our defense line is used to play very deep and with this new midfield they have to move up a bit. I hope their lack of pace won't cause too much trouble, but we shall see.

early days and our opponent was pretty weak, even at home, so I will be cautiously optimistic for now.

No surprise on Diego for me as I've known he can actually play football... unlike some other strikers...

[JamesGodfrey 87]

I was at the game and have to say Fabregas was a stand out motm for me. It was such a great away day!

[The Rising Sun 696]

I hope people can come to grips with the fact that with this new attacking nous we will not be as solid in the back. We will be better than most but don't expect last years rock solid defense to be on display week after week... Defense is about the team shape and right now we're looking to get more people in attacking positions which will in turn leave us a little exposed.

Thats actually exactly what we needed.

Being over cautious last season got us the least goals conceded, but in the end, we couldnt do enough to score and win games, and ended up losing the title.

I think most of us will gladly accept letting in an extra 10 goals, if that allows us to score and extra 30 goals.

The perfect example of this change, is the fact that last season even if schurrle made that run, and oscar was somewhere else, our pivot midfielder would have been close to halfway line and not close to the box, for fabregas to be where he was and play that through ball that killed the game.

Clean sheets are more important in games against the big boys, where perhaps there will be less goals and better defensive performances.

Against the lesser sides, conceding a goal a game, but scoring 3-4 is exactly what we need.

I can remember how bad i felt every time last season when we had a clean sheet, but it was only 1-0 at the 80th minute, when the other team went on and scored a goal.

And we either drew the game or lost.

Not anymore with this style. It will allow us to score enough to have a 2 goal or more cushion towards the end of the game, and avoid the pressure and uncertainty.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Thats actually exactly what we needed.

Being over cautious last season got us the least goals conceded, but in the end, we couldnt do enough to score and win games, and ended up losing the title.

I think most of us will gladly accept letting in an extra 10 goals, if that allows us to score and extra 30 goals.

The perfect example of this change, is the fact that last season even if schurrle made that run, and oscar was somewhere else, our pivot midfielder would have been close to halfway line and not close to the box, for fabregas to be where he was and play that through ball that killed the game.

Clean sheets are more important in games against the big boys, where perhaps there will be less goals and better defensive performances.

Against the lesser sides, conceding a goal a game, but scoring 3-4 is exactly what we need.

I can remember how bad i felt every time last season when we had a clean sheet, but it was only 1-0 at the 80th minute, when the other team went on and scored a goal.

And we either drew the game or lost.

Not anymore with this style. It will allow us to score enough to have a 2 goal or more cushion towards the end of the game, and avoid the pressure and uncertainty.

Oh I agree! But last year we didn't have the personnel to go out and batter teams, it was better to be compact and get out on the counter. This season with the addition of a proper striker and a deep lying playmaker along with the attacking trio we have more quality offensively to go out and control the pace and dictate the game from an attacking standpoint.