Chelsea face off against a similar but different Burnley side. Mister Sean Dyche took them to Europe but all has not gone well since.
Sean Dyche eats worms. And he is a warlock. Some may say he is the last herald of “proper football” (usually spoken by “yer da”). Sean Dyche is probably the closest the game has to a Big Sam Allardyce regen.
But Dyche is just a decent English manager with a very English team that does very traditionally English football things. He does not have the flair or boyishness of Eddie Howe. In fact, he is on the opposite side of the tracts from Howe. Dyche is rough, grizzled, and hard. And it shows in his tactics.
Dyche’s preferred formation is a 4-4-2 or a 4-4-1-1. Both operate nearly exactly the same. A rough and tumble defensive line with a solid and scrappy midfield in front of them. Two chalk-on-your-boot wingers flank them with target men up top. Nothing fancy by any means.
Long balls are the name of the game. Win the ball, boot it up to a winger or striker and see what happens. Last year, it caused havoc to opposition defenses as almost every team tried to press Burnley into their box. That merely gave Burnley acres to work with when their long balls went up. And since the side is really good at aerials, they had little trouble taking advantage of that situation.
Defensively things are equally as simple. Burnley will get compact and wait for the opponent to make a mistake. When they do, the Burnley players will quickly progress the ball up for the counter. When they lose the ball, they usually have enough players back and compact to do it all over again.
Perhaps the biggest reason that the tactics worked well last year is because they are simple and the team knew them well. Burnley does not have a lot of player turnover and they know where everyone is going to be when they play the long balls. Opponents usually struggle against Burnley when they try to get too fancy against them and Dyche’s men take advantage of that time and time again.
But simplicity is also a weakness of Burnley. If the opposition manager tries to do too much, they struggle. But if they themselves keep their ideas simple, Burnley struggles. That is probably why more tactically minded managers who try to nullify or counter the opponent (see Antonio Conte or Jose Mourinho) struggle against Dyche but managers that focus on their own teams tend to do well (see Pep Guardiola or Arsene Wenger) against Burnley.
So in theory, since Maurizio Sarri focuses on his own team, Chelsea should do alright against Burnley. If Chelsea keeps things simple and avoids trying to be cute, they too can put five past Joe Hart like Manchester City did. Calmness in all phases is the key to beating Burnley and panic in any phase is how Burnley wins. So if Sarri can keep his mean cool, calm, and collected the result should be a simple one.