Gonna go all Matth and make a match thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28735901 Monday 18th August Kick off 2000 BST TEAM NEWS Burnley summer signing Lukas Jutkiewicz could partner Danny Ings up front after impressing in pre-season. Goalkeeper Tom Heaton is fit after missing several warm-up games with a calf injury. Chelsea could hand debuts to new trio Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa and Filipe Luis - and keeper Thibaut Courtois. The Blues will assess Didier Drogba's knee injury, while several players involved in the latter stages of the World Cup may lack match fitness. Season opener for us. Just looking for the 3 points here, nothing special guys. Though a 3 goal winning margin would put us top of the league so that would be cool. Burnley surprised everyone on their last PL visit by beating United at Turf Moor and they will be up for this. Hopefully our talent will see us through. This is a real test, as our problem last season was getting through bus parking smaller teams away from home, so this will be an early indicator of just how much we have progressed in this respect. My prediction 0-3 Chelsea win.
Home from work at 5. Steak and eggs for tea. Open a bottle of Malbec. Sit and watch The Blues, hopefully win. Ahh! life is so hard at times.
Well done on this Bodanki we often lack anywhere to head for on match days I've just arrived home, son will be here soon and we will be watching it together. Can't wait to get started this season. Think we'll tread a bit carefully first game out and I'll also be glad to get one of the lower teams out of the way first.
Amen to that. This is exactly the type of game we were dropping points in last season.....so I want to see 3 points and a tough away trip out of the way!!
If we get an early goal then I think we'll go on to hammer them. However, I don't think that'll happen with a 0-0 or very late win more likely. It'll be a hard game.
I can't see Burnley sitting back against us, not in front of their home fans anyway. We will control this, pick them apart and get at least a 3-0 win.
Burnley 01 Heaton 02 Trippier 05 Shackell 04 Duff 06 Mee 37 Arfield 15 Taylor 08 Marney 14 Jones 19 Jutkiewicz 10 Ings Substitutes 07 Wallace 11 Kightly 17 Sordell 22 Gilks 28 Long 30 Barnes 38 Dummigan Chelsea 13 Courtois 26 Terry 24 Cahill 02 Ivanovic 28 Azpilicueta 08 Oscar 21 Matic 14 Schürrle 04 Fábregas 10 Hazard 19 Diego Costa Substitutes 01 Cech 03 Filipe Luis 05 Zouma 09 Torres 11 Drogba 12 Mikel 22 Willian
Busy on here... Your 3-1 up in case no one realised Hate how Fabregas has looked so comfortable coming straight back into the team, gutted we didn't try for him
We were after a statement and we got one! The boys were imperious. ..hopefully we can keep this up till may!
I very nearly put a defender instead of Costa x2 aswell! Very good performance. Fabregas a breath of fresh air.
Very good performance, a little sloppy from JT for the first goal though, he played the Burnley guy onside when he should have rushed out sooner. Otherwise cannot complain....Fabregas through ball for Schurrle.......thats why we signed the lad, he is so switched on, he has an inhuman ability to read runs and the game as a whole. One of the best footballing brains I have seen, he reminded people of that tonight. It was just Burnley, but a decent performance, Costa got off the mark, Cesc is looking good as ever and we got the three points.....Bring on Leicester.... Oh and we should have had a pen in the first half when Costa was dropped! But never mind
Reminded me of the Hull game on the opening day of last season, won the game in the first half and eased up in the second. Cesc looked absolute quality and it was good to see Costa score on his debut. More of the same next week i hope.
Did Jose put that Diego's extra 10M quid on Luis, to take off that extra pressure? Cesc is awesome and created all 3 goals with some sublime touches. Hope we keep this up for 37 league matches - screw all cups, want the league
Still on the Malbec Abu ?? Have you tried Primitivo from Puglia in Italy? If you like Malbec you will love Primitivo, and not expensive.....yet !! Good win eh, Fabregas has made my concerns seem stupid in one game, more like that please Cesc !! Very good performance from all the newbies, we will be well competitive once we get some better understanding and clear some rust away. Couldn't have a better start. Well worth sitting in the dark at 5 am to watch that one .
