For 45 minutes, Chelsea’s wounded players jogged around the pitch as if wondering what was the point of it all. To be fair this is a question many of us have been pondering of late, but given recent events at Stamford Bridge the problem felt particularly acute. What exactly are Chelsea playing for these days? Pride? Escapism? Third place? Thomas Tuchel’s job? Who would even fire him at the moment? Is anyone safe these days?
Naturally, this suited Burnley just fine. They had troubles of their own to contend with and after a reasonably solid first half harboured genuine hope of an unexpected point in their struggle against relegation.
Wout Weghorst and Dwight McNeil could even have put them ahead. Still, the mood as the teams emerged after the break was ebullient.
What happened next depends on your interpretation of events. Did Chelsea rediscover their sense of vim and purpose, shake themselves out of their Sky Sports News-induced stupor and learn that the joy of good football is its own reward? Did Burnley crumble and collapse on the altar of their own premature ambition? Or did the team with better footballers just start doing better football things?
All we know for certain is that within two minutes the excellent Reece James had given Chelsea the lead and six minutes after that Kai Havertz made it two. Two minutes after that Havertz scored again and by the time Christian Pulisic made it 4-0 after a comical error by James Tarkowski people were already beginning to leave. Those who stayed watched in a sort of sullen dejection, occasionally breaking their silence to barrack Burnley players for passing it straight out of play, or both pressing the same man, or occasionally tackling each other.
In many ways it was Burnley who seemed to be experiencing the existential crisis in the second half: a team with a shape but no real form, a plan but no real vision, just doing vaguely the same things every week in the hope that it will somehow scrape together 38 points. Some weeks it works and some weeks it does not, but there are good players at this club, skilled players, players with teeth and hunger. Too little of that has been evident this season. Is there more to life than simply bunting it up the touchline and hoping a couple of deflections go your way? We may be waiting some time to find out.
N’Golo Kanté was sensational: skating and slaloming across the pitch as if it were his pitch, gliding and flicking the ball as if it were his ball.
Attacks seemed to quicken as they moved through him. He had a hand in three of the goals, and it was he alone who seemed to grasp the urgency of the game and the speed of ball required to win it. Does Kanté worry about how the war in eastern Europe and the threat of sanctions will affect his professional ambitions over the next few years of his career? Probably.
He’s a smart cookie. But what we can say for sure is that he does not play like it.
Kanté to the wing-backs was the ball that kept doing the damage: James on the right and Saúl Ñíguez on the left pushing high, latching on to Kanté’s diagonals and creating mayhem. First James twisted and turned McNeil before firing low across Nick Pope; then Havertz headed home Pulisic’s cross after more good work from James. Then it was 3-0: Kanté again, James again, Havertz falling into the goal but somehow managing to hook the ball with him as he did. The fourth was the most calamitous of all: Tarkowski, under no real pressure, simply tapped Saúl’s cross into the path of Pulisic, who looked almost embarrassed as he buried the ball from four yards.
The rest of the game was played out to the sound of Chelsea fans singing about their fallen owner, a reclusive billionaire who they did not know and who had not deigned to meet or speak to them in 19 years. The chants began before the match had even started: on the train up from London, through the streets of Burnley town centre, even as Turf Moor rose to observe a moment of solidarity for the people of Ukraine. The warm applause was quickly broken by a chorus of “Roman Abramovich”. This in turn was met by boos from the Burnley fans. On the big screen a message read: “FOOTBALL STANDS TOGETHER.”
