Chelsea v Burnley - talking points Fri 11 Aug 2017

Chelsea v Burnley - talking points

                                                                                                                                 Fri 11 Aug 2017

The champions' league defence starts with a Saturday 3pm kick-off, and here club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton begin their Pre-Match Briefing…

 

The opening exchanges of the campaign… We recall Poyet’s volley, Stanic’s missile, Deco’s thump, hitting Derby for five and the Baggies for six (Liverpool, too, for our most venerable supporters). We remember seeing off West Ham's ‘World Cup winners’ on their own patch, and Cesc Fabregas’s geometric pass for Andre Schurrle to score at Turf Moor in 2014/15.

The opening exchange of the season is a time when belief is fit to burst, hope is pristine and dreams can be realised. The Premier League champions will start their defence without live TV coverage for the first time since 2003. The cameras will miss Eden Hazard walking the trophy around the pitch before kick-off, but those lucky enough to be inside the Bridge will not.

In bringing a fifth Premier League title to Stamford Bridge, head coach Antonio Conte became the fourth Italian to lead a team to the championship, and the fourth coach to do so in his maiden season in charge.

The trick, now, is to make the best start to doing what no English club has managed since 2009 – retain the Premier League title. It is a feat the Italian managed with remarkable diligence as coach of Juventus.

More often than not the opening day of the season has been a pleasant one for Chelsea supporters. In fact, you have to go back to 1998 to find a defeat – a debacle at Coventry in which the Blues were trailing 0-2 after a quarter-of-an-hour. Happily, there have been 15 wins (and three draws) to savour since then.

Chelsea have won 54 of a possible 75 points on the opening weekend of Premier League action, more than any other side.

Among the six clubs ever-present in the Premier League throughout the past quarter-century, Chelsea are the most successful starters. Burnley have lost all three of their Premier League opening-day fixtures so far.

The defending champions will also be aiming to extend a six-match winning run from the end of last season’s league campaign. That sequence brought 20 goals for, six against.

The defence begins after a disappointing outcome at Wembley in the Community Shield. We can question some of the refereeing decisions, especially the Willian penalty and subsequent yellow card, and Pedro red, but the ramifications are negligible. 

The irony is that Victor Moses misses out this weekend, following his dismissal in the FA Cup final, whereas our masked Spaniard is free to play.

Pedro will hope to emulate his former teammate, Branislav Ivanovic, who was the last man to receive a straight red in the FA’s prestige curtain-raiser. The Serbian netted inside two minutes against Wigan at the Bridge in his next outing, the opening game of the 2012/13 season.

Last weekend Pedro also became the first Blue to wear a mask for the second time, the result of a collision with the outrushing Arsenal goalkeeper David Ospina a few weeks earlier.

There have been 14 incidents requiring Chelsea players to wear a mask, though none last season.

It is not just our No.11 who has a new look. The seats at Stamford Bridge are now adorned with ticks of approval from the club’s new kit supplier, Nike, as is the official 2017/18 Premier League match ball, the Ordem V, with ‘Aerowtrac’ grooves aimed at enhancing consistency in flight (pictured top).

Into the fray come Burnley, also our opening-day opponents back in 1954/55 and 2014/15. Keeping the claret connection, West Ham United were the visitors for last season’s opener. In all three seasons Chelsea finished as champions. There is surely no need to consult the Oracle at Delphi about such an omen. 

Sean Dyche’s squad spent pre-season in Ireland and England, though last Saturday’s match at Turf Moor (once used to host the Charity Shield) against Hannover ended prematurely because of crowd disturbances. That would not have pleased their fastidious coach, and there was talk of the Clarets arranging a fresh friendly at short notice to make up the lost playing time.

The Clarets have recruited men of experience in Phil Bardsley, Jack Cork (below), and Jon Walters, and one for the future in Charlie Taylor. All suit the hard-working, more counter-attacking style Dyche adopted during the last campaign. 

We have brought in four new players and with the transfer window closing at 11pm on Thursday 31 August, there is time to increase that number.

The Premier League has announced one major disciplinary change this season, with a panel to meet each week to review match footage for examples of deception. Players adjudged to have dived, or feigned injury, may receive a two-match ban, providing the three-man panel is unanimous in its verdict. Conversely a player seen to have been shown yellow or red on the basis of deception by an opponent may have the card rescinded. 

The panel will consist of one former match official, a former manager and an ex-player. The published list of panellists include former players/managers Nigel Adkins, Rachel Brown-Finnis, Terry Butcher, Lee Dixon, Alex McLeish, Danny Murphy, Chris Powell and Trevor Sinclair; and former match officials Keren Barratt, Steve Dunn, Mike Mullarkey, Alan Wiley, and Eddie Wolstenhome.

Also shown the red card are fancy pitch patterns. The grass must display ‘no markings other than the traditional horizontal and white lines,’ a Premier League statement confirmed.

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