Chelsea 3-0 Burnley: Dismantled and Dispatched!

Chelsea started this season as the title favourites, much like last season. With four matches and four fantastic wins, the odds on Chelsea are getting shorter. Yesterday, Liverpool got out of the jail thanks only to the red card to Bolton.

Man United don’t look convincing at all in their scraping through at Old Trafford. You just have to connect the key words—Old Trafford—Referee—Penalty—Luck—Win.

We know this Arsenal team has not learned the art of winning but certainly they wrote a new chapter in the art of losing. They way they lost the battle after Man United’s (or Arsenal’s?) second goal was pathetic. With Spurs scoring a injury time winner and Ashley Cole getting on the scoresheet, it was never going to be Arsenal’s day!

Chelsea were simply superb. Like Steve Bruce said, they really scare you with their quality. Yesterday, Chelsea must have score about eight goals, if we had taken our chances well enough. I predicted a 4-0 win and I wasn’t too far away from the correct score. Burnley came here with a reputation.

They had beaten Man United and Everton and collected six unlikely points. So they are forgiven if they had any hope of nicking a point or three here at Stamford Bridge. But what they saw was Chelsea at their sublime best.

While we were creating opportunities through flowing attacking moves, Burnley didn’t even get to play the ball. For all this, Chelsea did not even get to the second gear. Now, that’s what scaring people.

All the three goals were lovely. First one was simply undefendable (indefensible?). I pitied Burnley. They did their best in the first half. Their keeper was throwing himself at everything and we were guilty of throwing everything at him. We needed something special and it did arrive.

Essien’s long distance through pass was just world class. I’ve seen replays to understand how to saw and expected Drogba to make a run. It was a piece of genius.

And Drogba saw the pass, credit to him. Great run and a perfect cross. I thought it could have been finished better but a goal nevertheless. Anelka arrived there at the right time to get another goal.

If Chelsea go to the half time break with a goal ahead, the match is pretty much over. But we had this little business of improving the number in the goal difference column. The second half was going to be goals.

I had just texted my mate that Ballack is very impressive and he scores a goal. The short build-up to the goal was smart and cheeky. Anelka made a cunning little pass with a deceptive backlift of his right foot, while Lampard making the most unlikely run to pick that up as he would normally be expected to wait outside the D.

Once the opponent gets the ball into the area like that, you don’t leave any German unmarked. Nowadays, Ballack is playing in a more attacking role and he seems to be loving it. Any bets on him reaching double figures?

Third goal summed up the match. We dominated them so much and put them on the back foot while we were playing as we pleased. When Ashley Cole ran to pick Lampard’s little chip I thought he was going to cross it in but man, wasn’t that some shot?

I’m struggling to find who’s the man of the match! Could it be Essien or Drogba or Ashley Cole or the man of two assists and the darling of the fantasy league managers—Frank Lampard? I’d give it to Essien because was a few decimals above the rest.

This was a match it’s hard to look for negatives. Everything went as per our script. Last season, we were so indecisive and castrated at home and this season, at home, we are as ruthless as champions should be. If there is one thing I still want to be bring out, that would be this—I was truly hoping to see Sturridge in action.

I was a bit disappointed that Kalou came in when we were 3-0 ahead. Anyway, I now have faith in Ancelotti. He certainly knows what he’s doing. I particularly like the way he selection of playing eleven, bench players and the in-match substitutions.

Is Carletto experimenting on the right back position? In the last match, he even gave an opportunity to Hutchinson and we saw Belletti playing right back yesterday. Good signs. I almost forgot, with just 10 minutes to show anything, Hutchinson impressed me.

He’s a big lad, looks like a monster when seen near Carvalho. I like the way he moved on the pitch the other day. If Hutchinson gets to play first team games for Chelsea, Sturridge would certainly play too.

In other news, Shevchenko has parted ways. He’s gone back to Dinamo Kiev. He was and is one of my favourite players. He is a legend. It’s very unfortunate that his stint with Chelsea did not just click.

With this movement, Chelsea’s transfer business of this summer comes to an end, unless we see a surprise by Tuesday. I think this time the transfer is ending on the Tuesday, 2nd September because Monday is a bank holiday. From a Chelsea point of view, I don’t think there’ll be any surprises, I really don’t.

The champions league group league draw has been made. We have a challenging group while Man United and Arsenal have got a bye, or I am overestimating these English teams. Liverpool’s group could be tricky. Chelsea play good old Porto, Atletico Madrid, and Apoel from Cyprus.

In a six-match group, we won’t have Drogba for three matches and Bosingwa for two. Considering that, ours is a challenging group indeed. Such is fate that Barca are drawn with Inter and Madrid are drawn with Milan. By the way, did you guys see the total annihilation in the Milan derby? I just loved it to bits.

We’re going into an international break and when we’re back, we’ll be playing Stoke City on the weekend of 12th September, while Man City host Arsenal and Spurs host Man Utd. It’s nice to see us progress in multiples of three while our rivals keep are forced to drop points. Two weeks then.

So what do we do till then? Some fantasy league updates, some talk about the most awaited football games—PES 2010 and FIFA10 and anything else that I’m not able to think of now. Catch you then. Cheers!