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MOTD: Chelsea 1-1 Burnley

By on February 21, 2015

Minute thirty, minute thirty-three, minute forty-three, and minute sixty-nine. Minute thirty, minute thirty-three, minute forty-three, and minute sixty-nine. Jose Mourinho repeated his mantra five times before walking out on his dumbfounded interviewer. These were the four moments he pinned as the match-deciders, and he needn’t say more.

Minute thirty: Ashley Barnes got away with clattering into Branislav Ivanovic. Minute thirty-three: referee Martin Atkinson denies Chelsea a clear penalty. Minute forty-three: Diego Costa goes down in the penalty area too easily, and again the referee waves play-on. Minute sixty-nine: Barnes again gets away with a horror challenge, but Nemanja Matic is sent off for his inexcusable reaction. It is by no surprise that Mourinho noted the four biggest refereeing calls of the game against Chelsea, given his tendency to deflect attention from his side’s weaker performances.

It’s no more than a piece of propaganda — the Portuguese manager pushing his “campaign against Chelsea” idea — but a telling one at that. Unusually in today’s match, Chelsea lacked the clinical finish to put the game to bed when they had the lead; instead, they grew frustrated, culminating at the point when Matic boiled over after he was fouled. That indeed was a key moment, but in part Chelsea’s own fault. They shot themselves in the foot and the result was dropping two critical points.

It was exactly the result Chelsea would have hoped to avoid. The last thing the club wanted was any reminder of their midweek draw in Paris, which was overshadowed by the Metro racist incident involving their supporters — the club promoted today’s match as their second “Game for Equality” — yet so it was, oddly, that Chelsea once again relied on Branislav Ivanovic, who tucked a low finish across goal from Eden Hazard’s cut-back early on. This proved their sole goal, with Diego Costa drawing a blank.

Credit is due to Burnley, who earned the result contrary to what Mourinho implied. In fact, Jason Shackell came close to equalizing just twenty minutes in with a header, only narrowly missing the target. Sean Dyche’s men were resolute at the back and quick on the counter, and though Chelsea dominated possession Burnley ended with as many shots on target as their hosts. Burnley frustrated Chelsea so much so that the highlights of the first half were the two penalty shouts Chelsea had.

Barnes was a thorn in Chelsea’s side all night — all too often literally — and forced Thibaut Courtois into an excellent save to tip his fifty-first minute effort over the crossbar. His nearly leg-breaking challenge on Matic in the seventieth minute came after a lengthy spell of Chelsea pressure and a Tom Heaton save from Costa, yet this challenge alone was indeed enough to spark Matic’s overheated but understandable reaction. Atkinson chose to punish Matic for the reaction, not Barnes for his challenge.

Chelsea went into preservation mode, sitting deep and allowing Burnley to push forward; as a result The Clarets rediscovered their energy. Barnes’ low effort from the edge of the box pulled a top-notch save out of Courtois with ten minutes to go, and from the following corner Ben Mee pulled away from substitute Ramires to bullet a header into the back of the net. It could have been worse for Chelsea, with Danny Ings firing high and wide from a good position late on, yet either way this result wasn’t enough to derail their title quest. The league is still in their hands, thought some glances over their shoulders at the steaming Manchester City are due.
Man of the Match: Ashley Barnes

Homepage photo credit: CFCUnofficial on Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.