Match report and free highlights as Chelsea score four unanswered second-half goals to inflict damaging defeat on Burnley; Reece James, Kai Havertz (2) and Christian Pulisic on target at Turf Moor as Chelsea tighten grip on third spot and deepen Clarets' relegation fears
Sunday 6 March 2022 09:38, UK
Chelsea tightened their grip on a top-three finish as a stunning second-half salvo floored relegation-threatened Burnley 4-0 at Turf Moor.
The Blues needed just seven second-half minutes to take full advantage of the first-half reprieve handed to them by Burnley's wastefulness, with Reece James' slaloming, solo effort opening the floodgates before Kai Havertz's double sealed the Chelsea victory with 35 minutes to spare, and Christian Pulisic added gloss with a fourth.
Burnley should have gone into the break at least a goal to the good but were punished for their profligacy, with Dwight McNeil guilty of missing an open goal after Thiago Silva had cleared an effort from Wout Weghorst off the line in an encouraging, yet fruitless, first period for the Clarets.
The victory sees Chelsea open up an eight-point cushion over fifth-placed West Ham - who have played a game more - in the race for Champions League qualification, while Burnley stay in the bottom three, a point from safety having sustained a severe blow to their goal difference.
Dyche called on his players to rekindle the form which had seen Burnley claim seven points from three games before Tuesday's defeat to Leicester and, after weathering a positive Chelsea start, the Clarets rose to that challenge in the first half.
Charlie Taylor had to block a James' shot on the goal line on the quarter-hour mark but from there on the goal-mouth action was concentrated on the Chelsea goal, with Thiago Silva coming to the visitors' rescue on 17 minutes when he thwarted Weghorst's goal-bound effort.
Burnley's dominance should have been rewarded on the half-hour when Edouard Mendy flapped at Ashley Westwood's deep cross and presented the ball to McNeil but, with the Chelsea goal gaping in front of him, he ballooned a shot over the bar.
Connor Roberts produced a crucial headed clearance to prevent Jorginho's rasping drive from handing Chelsea an undeserved lead on the stroke of half-time, but that defensive resoluteness escaped Burnley within seconds of the restart as the visitors ran riot.
James bewildered McNeil with a superb weaving run into the Burnley area before lashing the opener past the hapless Nick Pope, and the Clarets stopper was picking the ball out of his net five minutes later when Pulisic's sumptuous cross was nodded in at the far post by Havertz.
Burnley's collapse was complete when two became three on 55 minutes as Havertz doubled his Premier League goals tally for the season with the simplest of tap-ins from James' centre, and further salt was added to the wounds when Pulisic capitalised on James Tarkowski's error to slot in a fourth.
Thomas Tuchel said Chelsea fans picked the wrong time to show their support for Roman Abramovich after the Russian owner's name was chanted during a show of solidarity with Ukraine ahead of kick-off.
Premier League clubs showed their support for Ukraine on Saturday following Russia's invasion of the country, but Chelsea fans chose the moment of applause before kick-off to pay tribute to Abramovich, who announced his decision to sell the club on Wednesday evening.
"It was not the moment to do this," Tuchel told his post-match press conference. "If we show solidarity, we show solidarity, we should do it together.
"We take the knee together. If an important person from our club or another club unfortunately dies, we show a minute of respect, it is not the moment to give other messages, it's a moment to show respect.
"We do this because this is what we are, we show respect as a club, and we need our fans to commit to this minute of applause. We do it for Ukraine, there is no second opinion about the situation there. They have our thoughts and our support; we should stand together as a club. It's not the moment for other messages."
Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel: "It was very calm, we just reminded everybody what we wanted to do, where the spaces were, and where we also needed to step up. It was clearly up front; we needed to ask more questions and make life more difficult for their back four.
"The goal opened the game for us and gave us a lot of belief and confidence, and then our attacks were more fluid, and we were absolutely more decisive. We had a bit of a switch in tactics to give N'Golo [Kante] more space.
"The team did very well, we kept on believing, and it was a fantastic second half with a brilliant result."
Burnley boss Sean Dyche: "You hope you're not going to pay for it [for not taking our chances] but we did. We were excellent in the first half. The game plan we started out with was delivered by the players; we kept it nice and tight, the shape was excellent, they played around our shape and never broke us down. We had the best chances, one fell to Dwight [McNeil] which you hope will go in, but we were completely in the game at half-time.
"Then a really poor goal clearly affected us in the second half. It's the madness of football sometimes, you can concede but that shouldn't stop us from doing what we were doing. We lost sight of that, opened up too quickly and thought we would score right away against a team that have only conceded 18 goals.
"Then the second goes in, then the third and that is it, the game is gone. I'm really confused by that eight or nine minutes. We will debrief that because it was not like us, certainly not recently."
Sky Sports' Jack Wilkinson at Turf Moor:
"It was a case of what might have been, and a case of what might be to come for Burnley. Miss chances like they did in the first half and defend like they did in the second half and their Premier League status could expire come the end of the season.
"The Clarets were superb in the first period, but you cannot afford to miss chances like the one Dwight McNeil squandered. Chelsea were off colour and there for the taking, but Burnley let them off the hook and paid a heavy price.
"The opportunity to climb above Everton and out of the bottom three was not seized and their goal difference is now worse than the Toffees, who have two games in hand. The outlook is bleak."
Reece James came through the first two games of his comeback from injury unscathed, but his performance at Burnley was a timely reminder of just what Chelsea have been missing.
The England international's first Premier League goal since October and an assist for Havertz's second took the full-back's figures for the season to five goals and six assists, and Tuchel couldn't hide his relief to have James back.
"We've missed him for such a long time that we got used to it. It was like nine weeks, in which we had 25 matches and were constantly trying to find solutions.
"The team found solutions as a team, we managed to win games and even a title in this period, but once he is back you see what you miss.
"These positions are very important positions if you play with this structure. It puts things into perspective when you see what we missed."
Burnley travel to Brentford in the Premier League on Saturday at 3pm, while Chelsea travel to Norwich on Thursday at 7.30pm, before hosting Newcastle on Super Sunday at 2pm - live on Sky Sports Premier League.
