By Safiu Kehinde
In what supposed to be the eighth straight win for Chelsea, an effort to outwit Burnley proved abortive as the Blues were held to a draw at Stamford Bridge.
Thomas Tuchel’s men were denied a chance to continue their winning streak after stubborn Burnley held their ground following a 1-1 draw.
The first half saw Chelsea take the lead through a header from Kai Havertz. This came in the 33rd minute after several desperate attempts by the Blues to nail Burnley early enough.
With Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner still out injured, Chelsea felt the effect of their absent strikers as they were wasteful in front of goal. Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ross Barkley both had good chances to put the Blues upfront, but their attempts went wide.
Similarly, Kai Havertz, while maintaining his false nine role, was not clinical enough to keep Burnley at bay. He missed a lot of chances and had to wait for Reece James’ cross before putting the Blues in front before half time.
Despite dominating the game, Chelsea could only hit the goal mouth four times while 11 shots went blank.
According to Opta Stats, they had 25 shots in total — their most in a Premier League home game since 2015. Tuchel’s men, however, had to pay for their wastefulness as Burnley found an equalizer in the 79th minute through Matej Vydra. The Clarets could only register two shots on target among which was the equalizer.
However, Tuchel heaped praises on his team while claiming that Burnley were ‘lucky’ to have held the Blues to a draw.
“This is our seventh game in a row, we come from away games, from Champions League games, and to play a team like Burnley that always believes, puts long balls in and out of the box, and we keep them out and keep them out at the level.
“We collected first and second balls, did so much invisible work as a team to control a match like this. We created so many chances so it was a fantastic effort and a fantastic performance. So I am super happy. It can happen in football, sometimes unfortunately like today, that somebody else steals some points and is lucky,” the German said.
