Next Monday, 18th August 2014, Chelsea will travel to Turf Moor to go head-to-head with Burnley for what will be the final match of the English Premier League’s opening round.

José Mourinho’s Chelsea were not always impressive in the last campaign, especially towards the end of the season. The Blues lost the title train and, although they have also crushed Liverpool’s title dreams, they allowed Manchester City to escape and to be coronated as the new EPL champions.

For this new season, nevertheless, the Portuguese manager seems to have everything under control as he brought in plenty of quality players during the Summer. The arrival of the Brazilian born Spanish sharpshooter Diego Costa and the return of Didier Drogba will certainly increase the team’s firepower up in the front, especially after the Blues’ forwards presented some poor finishing skills during the last campaign. Mourinho has also decided to bring in some “fresh blood” to the team’s midfield line and the arrival of the former Arsenal and Barcelona’s midfielder Cesc Fàbregas will surely offer the Blues plenty of more creativity in their midfield line, as he might act as deep-lying playmaker, together with Matic in the team’s 4-2-3-1 midfield duo.

For the match against Burnley next Monday, José Mourinho will not be able to rely on the contribution of Didier Drogba, since the Ivorian forward will probably be sidelined for quite a long time due to an ankle injury.

As for the home side, Burnley, the match against Chelsea is probably not the best way for them to initiate their season at the English Premier League, after only gaining promotion last term by finishing second on The Championship.

The Clarets are commemorating the 53rd stint at the top flight of English football and their performances during the pre-season matches were fairly positive. Sean Dyche’s boys have only lost once on their six preparation clashes, grabbed a 2-2 draw against Celta de Vigo and a convincing win over the Italian side of Verona.

Burnley are usually fairly competent when playing at home and it will certainly be interesting to see if their goal scoring machine from last season, Danny Ings, will keep up with his impressive tab at the EPL this term.

The last time both sides measured forces at Turf Moor was back in 2010, during Burnley previous stint at the English top flight, and Chelsea won the match by 2-1. For the next Monday’s match Chelsea have everything in their favour to win the match and, despite the home side’s recent good moment, they might not have what is needed for defeating José Mourinho’s men.

Burnley

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-1

Recent Form - WDWLW

Chelsea

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - WLWLW

Possible Line-ups

Burnley (4-4-2) –Heaton - Trippier - Duff - Shackell - Mee - Taylor - Marney - Jones - Arfield -  Ings - Jutkiewicz

Chelsea (4-2-3-1) – Cech - Ivanovic - Terry - Cahill - Filipe Luis - Matic - Fàbregas - Hazard - Salah - Oscar - Diego Costa

Prediction

Burnley 1 Chelsea 2