Chelsea defeated Burnley 4-2 on Saturday and showed just how good they have the potential to be.
The Blues moved into fourth place on Saturday when they put in one of the most professional and assured performances they have played all season. They still showed their age in not maintaining their concentration for the full 90 minutes and, therefore, not seeing the game out with a clean sheet. But if they have the potential to play against an opposition as tough, professional and disciplined as Burnley FC are under Sean Dyche away at Turf Moor the way they did in the first half, then the sky truly is the limit for this Chelsea side.
Every member of the team contributed exactly as these Blues are expected to, and some even more than that.
Christian Pulisic has endured a more difficult start to his life in England that has been necessary. Perhaps it was just all those people in a modern footballer’s entourage who do nothing but complicate life: the agents, managers, handlers, estate managers, hanger-on Playstation-playing friends or others who simply don’t understand football at the top level. Pulisic had a storm around him even as nothing was ever really wrong.
Everybody at Chelsea FC understands that Pulisic is a talented player. They did, after all, pay £58.5 million for him. They didn’t do that thinking he was going to be a poor player. He is a young man moving to a new country and playing in the most competitive league in the world. And despite it all he still played hundreds of minutes in his short time.
Pulisic was always going to play and is going to be a very good, dependable player. He has a good brain and makes the right decisions. He is in good physical shape, has the right attitude and the proper team-centric ethics on the pitch.
He was always going to be fine. Those ludicrous fools who turned his early days into an undignified circus should be seen now for the fools that they are, and we can move on. He was fantastic on Saturday and it’s no surprise at all.
Kurt Happy Zouma is returning to exactly the sort of form we all expected of him.
His journey from and to Stamford Bridge has been an odyssey and it was wonderful to see him finally return this summer. Then he started the season playing some of the worst football I’ve ever seen from him, including my casual perusals of his time at Stoke and Everton. I began to worry.
I’ll be honest: I’m not neutral in any way on this. I want Kurt Zouma to succeed. I like him. On his day he’s a damn fine centerback and a good man and leader to have in the side. He’s showing that again.
His towering headers, organization and strength made Ashley Barnes appear brittle by comparison. If Kurt Zouma can pick up where he left off as a 20-year old spark plug in the defense but with the experience and intelligence his journey has given him, then Chelsea will be incalculably better for it. One can only that he maintains this. A partnership of him and Fikayo Tomori could be the beginning of a Barzagli-Bonnucci-Chiellini-like partnership of 1000 appearances collectively together.
Finally, Mateo Kovacic is starting to look like Chelsea simply got a deal for him. Not a mediocre bargain, but perhaps the deal of the season.
Players like him in the Premier League cost somewhere between £65-80 million these days. A complete box-to-box player with fantastic dribbling ability, a deft touch and a ferocious, terrier-like ability to win the ball back? He’s been revelatory and deserves a great deal of praise.
Almost everyone in the side was between good and great against Burnley. Tammy Abraham continues to do everything right even if he doesn’t score. His interplay and touches in and around his teammates suggest a great deal of intelligence and all the benefits of players growing up together.
Willian was perhaps the worst player and he still scored! Callum Hudson-Odoi was dangerous, but he may have showed some Pulisic-induced ill judgement with his VAR-caught dive.
The side is firing on all cylinders at the moment and they’re all just out of childhood. If this is how good, professional and complete they are, then Chelsea are in a very good position for the future.
There’s nothing to celebrate and no plaudits to have in October. Frank Lampard has the correct attitude and is the right man for this. He’ll keep their feet on the ground and make men of them yet.
The sky is the limit for Chelsea at this point. They have the right to dream because they’re playing among the clouds.