Chelsea’s Eden Hazard celebrates scoring their first goal. – Antonio Conte is now unbeaten in his last 30 home league matches as a manager (W28 D2).
Advertisement
“I’m a former global team coach so I know this situation and prefer it to be solved between Sam Allardyce and John Terry”, the former Italy manager added.
Stamford Bridge witnessed a three-goal thriller which earned Chelsea their third win on the trot in the new season.
But Conte said: “In this game we started well and played good football the whole game, but we know we can improve and we must improve”.
Conte, who has clearly made a point of rescuing the 25-year-old, said: “Eden is a fantastic player”.
“The press always asked me this question during my first year at Juventus”, he added. We are improving also in this aspect. For the opener, Hazard picked up the ball in Chelsea’s half and raced through space given him by Burnley’s midfield before cutting inside defender Michael Keane and firing low into the goal from the edge of the penalty area in the ninth minute.
Hazard’s incredible fall from grace last season, when he went from England’s Footballer of the Year to being blamed for the sacking of Jose Mourinho, was one of football’s strangest stories. Conte has urged the Belgian to carry on being a key man for Chelsea as the season wears on.
Put simply, Hazard looks back to his best. John Terry was guilty of an even worse miss, when Chelsea’s captain somehow blazed over the crossbar from four yards after Hazard’s brilliant volley had been parried by Heaton.
Burnley did not manage a single effort on goal in the first half and Dean Marney’s shot at the beginning of the second was barely worthy of the name as it flew high over the crossbar. Hazard nearly had a second five minutes later when he turned Matic’s cross goalwards but Ben Mee cleared his effort off the line.
Advertisement
Branislav Ivanovic says Chelsea were chasing home games too hard last season – and that’s the major reason they had to wait an unlucky 13 games before they got a home clean sheet against Burnley on Saturday. And if you make poor decisions like we made, against a strong side, then you are going to be in trouble, and we were.
