Burnley 0 Chelsea 2 — Should Chalobah-Sanchez incident have led to a penalty? Is Neto underrated? – The Athletic

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Burnley 0 Chelsea 2 — Should Chalobah-Sanchez incident have led to a penalty? Is Neto underrated? - The Athletic

Chelsea went second in the Premier League (at least temporarily) as Pedro Neto’s first-half header and a late effort from Enzo Fernandez proved enough for victory at Burnley.

After a first half-hour at Turf Moor with little action, Neto broke the deadlock with his 37th-minute finish, following a fine team move from Enzo Maresca’s side that culminated in a dinked ball into the area from Jamie Gittens.

It was Maresca’s 50th Premier League game in charge and while Chelsea were perhaps lucky not to concede a silly penalty in the first half and were not wholly convincing, they secured the win through Fernandez’s 88th-minute goal. Substitute Marc Guiu showed excellent hold-up play before squaring for the Argentina midfielder to turn home.

The win took Chelsea three points behind leaders Arsenal at the top of the table before the rest of the weekend’s games, having overtaken Manchester City before their game against Newcastle United on Saturday afternoon.

Here, Cerys Jones breaks down the game’s main talking points.

How did Chelsea cope without Caicedo?

Chelsea have rarely played without Moises Caicedo this season.

This was only the second Premier League game the 24-year-old midfielder had not started. Lincoln City in the Carabao Cup was the only match where he had not featured at all. Maresca joked afterwards it was the “last time” he would not use Caicedo in a Premier League match.

Having only returned from international duty with Ecuador on Thursday, Caicedo was given a welcome rest, but with Romeo Lavia and Dario Essugo both injured, Maresca had to get creative. Andrey Santos, who typically rotates with Enzo Fernandez in a more attacking role, took on Caicedo’s holding midfield duties.

Chelsea fans may have been pleasantly surprised by Santos’ defensive nous. He was confident in duels — a recovery run and well-timed sliding block on Jaidon Anthony 10 minutes in helped settle him — and positioned himself well to make several important clearances and blocks.

For a slight 21-year-old, he held his own well against Burnley’s front line. The problem was his playmaking. As many teams have done to Caicedo this season, Burnley used striker Zian Flemming to mark Santos out of contention and frustrate Chelsea’s attempts to build from the back. Left-back Marc Cucurella often tucked into midfield to add an extra option and provided some extra pace and dynamism, but it left Jamie Gittens isolated on the left wing.

Even with Caicedo on the pitch, Chelsea have struggled to deal with that opposition tactic. Santos was perhaps less confident on the ball and ambitious with his passing than Caicedo, but overall performed admirably in a position he is less accustomed to.

Should Burnley have been given a penalty?

Burnley were aggrieved not to have the chance to take a lead from the spot around the half-hour mark after Trevoh Chalobah handled the ball in the box, with the debate being whether play had already restarted.

As Chelsea set up to take a goal kick, goalkeeper Robert Sanchez rolled the ball into the box and passed it to Chalobah on the edge of the six-yard box. He ran back to his goalmouth, making it look as if he thought the ball was in play.

The defender put his hands on the ball to control it — evidently believing it was not in play.

After protests from Burnley’s players and Chalobah pleading his innocence, referee Peter Bankes sided with the visitors and allowed play to continue.

It called to mind the penalty Aston Villa gave away against Club Brugge in the Champions League last season, when centre-back Tyrone Mings handled the ball without realising play had restarted. In a similar incident involving Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya and his team-mate Gabriel against Bayern Munich in their 2024 Champions League quarter-final, by contrast, a penalty was not given. FIFA match official Christina Unkel told CBS Sports at the time of that Arsenal incident that referees should use “common sense”.

“I think if a penalty’s given, I don’t think anyone’s asking any questions,” former Manchester City and England defender Joleon Lescott said on TNT Sports’ UK broadcast at half-time. “What has saved Chelsea here is Sanchez doesn’t put his hand on the ball in the six-yard box, which doesn’t indicate it’s a fresh restart. Then the referee has allowed Chalobah to make that decision.

“I think if Chalobah allows that ball to roll across his body and then plays out to Cucurella, the referee lets them play on and it doesn’t warrant them restarting, but the fact that he’s put his hand on it, he’s made it definitive in terms of ‘now we’re restarting’. The referee can and can’t get it wrong with this. He’s going to get it wrong for one team and, unfortunately, he got it wrong for Burnley.”

Is Neto underrated?

In the endless chatter around Chelsea’s wingers — the battle for the left between Gittens and Alejandro Garnacho, the magic Estevao can sprinkle on the right — came a moment for Neto.

The Portugal winger has been one of Chelsea’s most consistent forwards this season. Liam Delap’s absence through injury left Joao Pedro playing out of position as a No 9; now Delap is back, he is still recovering his finishing sharpness and is yet to score in the Premier League. Garnacho is coming into form, but the left wing has not been the most prolific source of goals for Maresca.

Neto’s header at Burnley today, opening the scoring in the 37th minute after a fine ball from Gittens, below, was his fifth goal contribution in Chelsea’s past five Premier League games. He came close to doubling the lead on 62 minutes, with his first-time attempt from Fernandez’s pass striking the post.

Neto has added more box threat to his game since moving from Wolverhampton Wanderers, and his directness and strength are valuable. Estevao may have grabbed plenty of attention for his sparkling performances from the bench, but Neto has helped him out by tiring defenders for an hour beforehand in many games.

The Neto-Estevao tag team on the right is the most exciting part of Chelsea’s attack at the moment, and the former deserves credit for that, too.

Where does this leave Chelsea?

Having been the team to get things back underway after the international break, Chelsea’s three points left them second in the table, with the rest of the league having a game in hand.

In his 50th Premier League game in charge, Maresca secured his 27th win. His side now appear firmly on course to keep their Champions League spot next season, but are they close to being title contenders?

The ability to grind out wins even on days where performances are sub-par is important — something Chelsea failed to do against Sunderland. That they managed to avoid any of their three yellow cards turning red will also be very welcome. The clinical counter-attack for Fernandez’s goal put the gloss on what would otherwise have been an unconvincing scoreline, killing any Burnley hopes of a last-gasp equaliser.

It looked initially as though they would leave themselves open to a late blow: Benoit Badiashile’s late yellow card for wrestling at a corner kick was an uninspiring sequence that did not speak to a side particularly confident they could add a second goal. The fact that they managed to do so will be an important confidence boost.

There are still major questions, though. How can they get more creative in midfield to circumvent opponents man-marking their deep-lying playmaker, for one. Whether they can turn any of their central forwards into a consistent goal threat is another.

Chelsea look on course to maintain their European status, but their title credentials remain unclear.

What did Maresca say?

“It was a tough game for many reasons,” Maresca told his post-match press conference. “After the international break, 12 o’clock in the morning, Burnley away, this type of pitch (Maresca clarified he meant the pitch dimensions). Overall, I think we deserved to win the game and we are happy.

“I’m very happy since I joined the club, not just in this moment. When you are Chelsea manager, you know that when you lose one game it’s a crisis, and if you lose two it’s a huge crisis, so you have to be aware of that. But I really enjoy it because also I like to learn. Today we expected a Burnley back five, and they used a back four, so after 20 minutes we needed to change the plan, and the players adapted. I learn things, so I’m very happy.

“We are confident, we are doing well. Today we could have done many, many things better, but in the end it was important to win the game. But we are confident and we are ready to prepare for Tuesday (when they face Barcelona in the Champions League) and Sunday (when they face Arsenal in the Premier League).”

On Reece James’ half-time substitution, Maresca said: “We planned on (him playing) 45 minutes. That’s why I said we had many reasons to be happy today, because one of the reasons was also to try to manage players. It’s not easy, because me personally, I would like Reece to continue also for the second half, but we need to protect Reece.”