Burnley 1-2 Chelsea - First time we’ve won back to back games in the league since December. Check us out.

Them: Aaron Lennon? Ahahahaha. I completely forgot that they beat us. That’s how long this season feels. If Sean Dyche could keep his interviews as short as possible. It unnerves me the way he sounds like he is massacring his throat with a cheese grater when he speaks.

Us: Six changes made, just as the door has been left slightly ajar on the top four. Against a team who have won five on the trot. Excellent. Hazard and Willian given a breather. Joy. But Rudi is off the naughty step. Emerson gets his first start has to deputise for Alonso. But hang on a minute. Two strikers. For the first time since 2011 apparently. But you’ll never please us lot. Cahill and Bakayoko both start, so that’ll give the nappy sh*tters plenty to moan about.

So 3-5-2, Interesting. Unlike the opening ten minutes of this match. First flashpoint came after seven when The Beard tried to make the most of going down in the box. Not a penalty. A good run by Morata followed, but his shot came via a very narrow angle. It might have been on the way in at the far post but he’d have been lucky to beat this goalkeeper I’ve never heard of, but who apparently is the best England have got, from there. At this point we’d had the best of the play, the possession and attempts. Which you will know if you have watched most of our games this season means absolutely nothing. I think I unwittingly took a nap because I closed my eyes and when I opened them again the clock had reached eighteen minutes. Don’t get me wrong. This is not the horror show that Southampton was in the first half, but it was about as interesting as watching Michael Owen commentating on watching paint dry. Until for once we profited from someone else’s f*ckwittery. Moses fights his way through, gets a cross (cue jokes about fainting) off and Kevin Long does the hospitable thing and puts the ball in the back of the net. 0-1.

Blues singing that awful We’ve Won it All
Them singing You F*cked it Up
Get what you deserve when you sing that

We had a free kick on 27 minutes on the outside of the box thanks to some bloke with jug ears who looks like a reject from a mid-90s boy band. Apparently he even plays for England. Who doesn’t, it seems? Pesto (f*ck you autospell) goes for the near post an misses. Two minutes later suddenly the game had turned. A long ball into the box for them and they started screaming for a penalty. p*ss off. A half chance shortly afterwards too, but thankfully the ball rolled comfortably into Thibaut’s arms. Suddenly they looked more likely to get forward. Anyone familiar with this tale of woe? But let it not be said that I am a pessimist. We had survived half an hour without conceding a goal at Burnley. Let’s just ignore the fact that they have scored less goals at home than any other side in the country. Jug Ears is trying to aggressively fondle Gary Cahill in the box, when he’s on a yellow. Nothing will happen. 

Not much more to shout about in the first half. A great break from Pesto on 37. He was getting so much space thanks to the Giroud/Morata combination. Can you imagine if that was Eden in there? He surged forward and narrowly missed getting it on the end of a striker’s foot. Burnley were getting sulky now. They thought they were hard done by. I’d think I was hard done by if I lived in Burnley too. 

Refwatch: I think their behaviour was deplorable and that Bobby Madley is a fine referee. They may have scored our goal, but we deserved to be ahead. They hadn’t even fashioned a shot on or off target. They’d looked nearly as flaccid and sad than Trump if he woke up and found that someone had nicked his wig. 

46 seconds into the second half and they had made more of an impact on our goal than at all in the first 45. Still no shot though. Beer had not cheered their moany fans up at half time. Burnley fans. BURNLEY, moaning every time you touch one of their players. Or calling for a handball. I’ve seen everything now. They had their first corner of the match on 52, but the high ball in was plucked (I hate that word, almost as much as I hate the word moist) by Thibaut from amidst a cluster of players. Oh dear Alvaro. Kante nicks the ball in them midfield on 54. The Beard busting a gut going with him, two against one, doesn’t want to pass, one on one with the keeper. Misses. Sigh. Watch that come back to bite us in the a*se. 

On 57 Pesto was away but got pushed out wide, before Jug Ears clatters The Beard. Appears to just have a free pass to commit fouls tonight. Another break came via Pesto and Moses just after the hour but the shot was tame. And then, having squandered numerous chances to extend our lead, the home team go and score. 1-1. Same sh*t, different day. Who makes the flags? I want a blue flag, with a white silhouette of a subbuteo player shooting itself in the foot to commemorate this season. 

Emerson forced a block with a long range shot on 67, nothing doing, but then with substitutes waiting to come on, in skitters Victor Moses. Cross misses the strikers and falls to him on the right of the box and England’s No.1, whoever he is, can’t get down to it in time. 1-2. Get in. But still Eden is going to come on. Willy sits back down. Morata not a happy bunny. Smashing things up on the bench whilst Fabregas tries to hug it out with him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him get mad before. I won’t lie. I was a bit turned on. I want to see him get mad. I want to see him fuming. Speaking of, Conte hadn’t shut up all night either. Good man. Burnley made a change too. I’d joke about not knowing who Sam Vokes is, but he’s the one that kicked our a*se at The Bridge. 

75 gone and we don’t look like losing. Which is of course fatal as far as we are concerned. Pesto could have sealed it on 81 with a long shot that sent the keeper the wrong way, but Jug Ears got in the way. Zappacosta on for Emerson, who did really well tonight considering that was his first league start in a year. Hazard had kept the ball brilliantly since his introduction and was mocking the Burnley defenders as they fought to get it off him. At one point it was seven on one. They did get in our box on 87, but Barnes’s header couldn’t find Vokes. 

Ball nicked by Kante on 88, three on three, but then we ended up dicking about on the touchline. As injury time ticked down, Sean Dyche was seemingly angry about something, but I was so mesmerised by how badly his ginger stubbled head clashed with his purple tie I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. No drama in extra time. Three points. 

So: We’d never lost at Burnley before tonight and I saw nothing of the team that has made its way to seventh in the league and is trying to finish above L’Arse. Thankfully. But then they appeared to be relying on Aaron Lennon running about with his jazz hands to do something magical. So I’m not sure they deserved any better. What I did see was a professional Chelsea side getting the job done, which was a bit of a mind f*ck. First time we’ve won back to back games in the league since December. Check us out. Solid performances from a few of the nappy sh*tters’ whipping boys tonight too: Cahill, Bakayoko, Moses. And although Morata’s miss made me want to kick things, at least for once he showed some kind of emotion about being disappointed with his performance. Use it.

5 points behind Sp*rs. Deficit halved in a week. Obviously I’d like to mow them down from behind like a tank driven by an angry gorilla amped on special k, but at least we haven’t rolled over and died. We’ll see.

AC
@CFCgwlb

Written by Alex Churchill from the fantastic Chelsea Blog - A Girl Who Likes Balls.