Chelsea fans’ preferred lineup against Burnley: The rise of the Kanté-Mount pivot!

The second game of the Thomas Tuchel era is upon us and Chelsea will be desperate to get back to winning ways. Burnley have established themselves as one of those teams nobody likes to play against, and they’ve won three in a row to boot. On the bright side, we can have some fun with formations!

THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE

The 4-2-3-1 (41%) is the WAGNH community’s favoured choice, with the recently used 3-4-3 (33%) not far behind. The 4-3-3 (14%) seems a distant memory suddenly.

In goal, Édouard Mendy remains uncontested first-choice ahead of Kepa Arrizabalaga (3%).

The back four ends up with the usual suspects. Tuchel might trust Antonio Rüdiger (33%), but the community clearly doesn’t. César Azpilicueta (31%) gets dropped; Andreas Christensen (4%), Emerson (5%) and Marcos Alonso (9%) remain out in the cold.

The double pivot sees N’golo Kanté start in arguably his best position, alongside Mason Mount in arguably not quite his best position. Jorginho (18%) and Mateo Kovačić (47%) played a big part in the sideway passing extravaganza against Wolves, but it wasn’t enough to stop them from joining Billy Gilmour (25%) on the bench.

Timo Werner leads the line ahead of Tammy Abraham (39%) and Olivier Giroud (10%). Right behind him, a combination of Callum Hudson-Odoi, Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic should cause enough problems to score the odd goal. After a subpar performance during the week, Hakim Ziyech (53%) is rightfully dropped.

4-2-3-1 (41%)
Mendy (96%) | Chilwell (77%), Silva (96%), Zouma (69%), James (80%) | Mount (78%), Kanté (55%) | Hudson-Odoi (78%), Havertz (64%), Pulisic (63%) | Werner (65%)

MY PREFERRED CHOICE

I chose a similar lineup to my last one, but with the double pivot this time, in which Kanté will thrive. It’s a difficult choice as to who should join him, as Mount can be just as effective further forward. Kovačić is also a good shout; Jorginho less so.

I still believe it’d be interesting to see Werner and Havertz roam up front and there’d certainly be enough creativity on the pitch to feed the both of them. Also, getting Zouma back in the lineup is more about safety than anything else, even if we did keep a clean sheet in our last game.

The key aspect for me here is to have two strikers up front. I just want to see it at least once in order to have some kind of indication whether or not it could actually work for us.

4-2-2-2
Mendy | Chilwell, Silva, Zouma, James | Kanté, Mount | Hudson-Odoi, Pulisic | Werner, Havertz