Premier League Hangover: Hazard Warning as Conte Finds His Eden at Chelsea

Antonio Conte less wears his heart on his sleeve than rips it from his chest to exhibit it on the touchline. Every game is an open invitation for Chelsea's players and supporters to view what he is willing to give for the cause and what he expects in return.

After the Jose Mourinho years where a simple gesture such as a smile could be interpreted in a myriad ways (kind, broad, thin, full, condescending, apologetic, mirthless, humourless, sardonic, sarcastic, sly), there is no gray area for Conte. As one would expect from a pupil of Juventus, everything is black and white. Just no one mention the Calciopoli scandal.

In less enlightened times, Conte is the type of warrior who would ride into the next village on horseback with the head of his latest conquest on a stick. Thankfully for Burnley boss Sean Dyche, referee Mark Clattenburg was on hand to ensure there would be no such showboating on Saturday. Chelsea supporters had to settle for a 3-0 victory and a pair of rabonas from Oscar and Eden Hazard.

Remarkably, this was the first time Chelsea have won consecutive home games in over a season. It also represented a first clean sheet in 13 games at Stamford Bridge, dating back to mid-January when League One side Scunthorpe United were the visitors.

Conte covers more ground in his technical area than Hazard managed in numerous games last season. A Tasmanian devil of a man, he can be as exhausting to watch as his sides are to play against.

Manic animation may be theatrical as he plays out every pass, tackle, header, shot and goal as though he'd love nothing more than to swap his sharp suit for shorts, but it's never for show. Chelsea's players are routinely called over for bite-size briefings, and it's been a feature already how often his words appear to yield subtle changes to how the game is panning out.

Such enthusiasm looks to have proved infectious as Chelsea head into the international break on the back of three Premier League victories from as many matches and a performance arguably as complete as there has been to date all season. For the first time since his arrival in the capital, we saw a Conte side in full working order on Saturday.

It is a little premature to talk of butterflies having hatched from the cocoons of inertia that were Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City last season, yet each of Conte, Mourinho and Pep Guardiola has made light work of living up to a Galactico billing.

In a campaign where the Premier League has sold itself by inverting the traditional Hollywood system, to have the directors as the main drivers of ticket sales rather than the cast of actors, all three have proved accomplished auteurs.

Hold up a mirror to their respective teams and the faces of Conte, Mourinho and Guardiola will stare back. That's quite the accomplishment after three matches and a combined maximum haul of 27 points. It is Manchester City who top the embryonic table on goal difference.

As a gruff Dyche pointed out in his post-match press conference, such was the overwhelming disparity between the two sides, this was not the day to judge how far Chelsea have come or may still need to travel, per the Daily Star's Tony Stenson: "It's about what happens when they take on the other superpowers of the division. That will be their real market."

It's true an early goal at home to a newly promoted side is the gift that keeps on giving, but Chelsea's endeavours didn't look like the work of a dinosaur, Sean.

Conte drills his players in training like few other coaches. His attention to the minutiae is legendary, with his work on the training field coordinated to leave nothing to chance. In the words of the preeminent American designer Charles Eames: "The details are not the details. They make the design."

Conte said post-match, per the Press Association (h/t Eurosport):

"

It's important to start in a good way. Usually when a new manager arrives he brings his method of football and new ideas, and you can have good ideas but it's also important to have results, so to start in this way is good for me.

To start the season with three wins, and a win in the cup, is good for the confidence of the players and the fans, and me. I see a lot of positive things but we can improve.

"

In each of Chelsea's previous league games, against West Ham United and Watford, they had to come from behind to win with late Diego Costa goals. On Saturday, they started as though they had been given the implicit instruction to get the job done early.

It was a feature all afternoon how Chelsea shifted the ball quickly at the back, conscious not to allow Burnley to regroup when out of possession to reform impenetrable banks of four. Lessons had clearly been learned from Burnley's defeat of Liverpool last weekend, despite having just 19.4 per cent possession. Conte's game management was impeccable in how he organised his side to control the space by playing with such an aggressive pace.

It would be no exaggeration to say Chelsea could have been 4-0 or 5-0 up by half-time; at full-time, Dyche will have privately been quietly relieved with a 3-0 defeat that flattered his side. When your goalkeeper has an inspired game and still concedes three, small mercies should be grabbed with both hands. Burnley were less a rabbit caught in the headlights as one caught under the wheel.

The West Ham and Watford victories galvanised a return of the spirit conspicuous only in absence during last season's annus horribilis. Here, with no little menace, Chelsea did not just rediscover a sense of style, but seemed to imbue a swaggering schadenfreude at watching their opponents collectively blow out their cheeks like a bantamweight mistakenly thrown in with a heavyweight.

A glass jaw was exposed on nine minutes. It was Hazard who delivered the knockout blow after a glorious solo run, but not before N'Golo Kante had got in a sneaky body shot to leave Burnley with the legs of a drunk at a free bar.

They were teetering from the moment Kante stole Andre Gray's weak lay-off deep in Chelsea territory to nudge the ball to Nemanja Matic. A simple interception and pass over the space of no more than a few yards was all it took—as it did for Leicester City so often last season—to turn defence to attack.

If you pause the action from the second Matic took possession, Hazard's body shape is that of a sprinter looking over his shoulder for a baton in a relay race. He was ready to go and had the finish line in sight.

It was a marked departure from last season when Hazard went from PFA Player of the Year in 2014/15 to being one as likely to trip over his lip as the ball.

Given the freedom of Burnley's right-hand side, he drove on from just inside his own half, as those in claret and blue parted to form a sea of encouragement, before engineering a sumptuously bent daisy-cutter to beat Tom Heaton from the edge of the area. Ben Mee had backed off the Belgian so much without making a challenge he was in the lap of a supporter by the time the ball had hit the net.

That's now six goals in eight league games for Hazard, the same number as he had scored in his previous 44 matches. He could have had another not long after when Mee cleared his goalbound shot off the line.

Burnley's back four looked traumatized at enduring wave after wave of Chelsea attacks. Before conceding a well-worked second to Willian on the half-hour mark, it wouldn't have been a surprise had the centre-half spent the half-time interval looking into changing his name by deed poll to Why Mee. Either that or f…

After the game, Hazard in no way alluded to former boss Mourinho when he spoke of Conte in glowing terms to Chelsea TV (h/t the Press Association, via the Daily Mail).

"He knows players because he used to be one," said Hazard, before lapping up a saucer of milk. "We had one bad season but we are trying to do better. He tries to motivate us and we are giving everything."

Chelsea had to wait until the 89th minute before adding a third goal, largely because Heaton made one of the most miserable weeks of Joe Hart's career even more wretched courtesy of a string of outstanding saves. Each was accompanied by a wink in the direction of England boss Sam Allardyce.

Hazard, Costa and Cesar Azpilicueta would all vouch for the Burnley man's capabilities. Looking a yard faster and a pound or two lighter, Costa could have had a hat-trick. As could Hazard, while John Terry missed an open goal.

If all great romances tend to start with a kiss, all great goals on the counter-attack tend to start with Kante. As is his wandering remit, the Frenchman popped up in the right-back area to cover for Branislav Ivanovic to quell a Burnley attack before it had ever really begun.

After a neat one-two, the ball was worked to Oscar, who in turn pinged a smart pass into the feet of Michy Batshuayi. He held off his marker before sending fellow substitute Pedro on his way down the left flank, who, after getting the ball out of his feet, whipped in a delivery gilded in gold for renaissance man Victor Moses to dispatch on the stretch with a controlled finish. Not a bad piece of work from Chelsea's second-choice front three. It is not just the Manchester clubs in possession of enviable benches.

From Kante's interception to Moses' finish, Chelsea needed just 13 touches to work the ball into the back of Burnley's net.

In the space of three games, it would not be hyperbolic to venture Kante has gone from being Leicester's most important player to Chelsea's. An on-field embodiment of his manager, he has injected his new club with a sense of urgency and energy so mysteriously absent last season.

As tenacious as a weed in a flowerbed, he suffocates opponents almost single-handedly. Kante does the simple things so well they become almost a thing of beauty.

Alongside him, Matic looks a different player. Rather than having to cover the defensive duties of two men when paired with Cesc Fabregas, the Serb practically becomes a spare man for Chelsea such is Kante's omnipresence.

On Saturday, he demonstrated a propensity to drive forward that under Mourinho's tenure would likely have led to his being subjected to psychiatric testing.

Gary Cahill and in particular 35-year-old Terry could have their respective Chelsea careers prolonged by having Kante drop in, around and behind them whenever they are caught short. He really is that good.

Conte seems to have got at Oscar, with the Brazilian another who has rediscovered his mojo. A wonderfully subtle player but one prone to let a game drift by, here he was as industrious as he was effervescent in showing a welcome South American relish for a challenge. For a diminutive figure, he packs quite the punch, with Conte gesturing wildly whenever Oscar showed a predilection to get involved in the ugly stuff.

The odd man out is Fabregas. After his tempo-setting, game-winning cameo off the substitutes' bench against Watford last weekend, he must have fancied his chances of starting on Saturday. His pass to dissect Watford's back line for Costa's winner was so precise it has been fast-tracked onto the curriculum for trainee surgeons.

Fabregas finished the weekend as an unused substitute. He may finish the week at another club. Either that or he'll form a Blues Brothers tribute act with Hart.

Several media outlets, including the Sun, are reporting he may have played his last game for Chelsea. Murmurs suggest Conte could be set to show his more brutal side by dispensing with Fabregas before the close of the transfer window on Wednesday, with reservations over his work ethic the purported motivating factor behind the decision.

Late on Sunday evening, Fabregas took to Twitter to shoot down the rumours.

If there is one thing Conte won't tolerate it's a lack of industry. Going off Chelsea's start to the campaign, few would dispute he has already successfully cleared the fog of complacency and funk of lethargy that enveloped the club last season. In Guus Hiddink's nine home games in charge after replacing Mourinho, he won just one. Conte has won two already.

As starts to life at a new club go, it's been pretty much as good as it gets. The problem for Conte and Chelsea is both Manchester City and Manchester United have been equally as impressive.

It's going to be quite the season. Be still, Conte's beating heart.