59 vs. 39 – The key stat from Burnley which Chelsea need to carry into Barcelona game | OneFootball

You can’t win pretty every time – sometimes you’ve got to dig in and win ugly.

That’s exactly what Chelsea did against Burnley on Saturday, in tricky circumstances away from home in an early kick off after an international break. That’s not to take away from the two nice goals the Blues scored – but let’s face it, it wasn’t much to write home about apart from that.

Chelsea dominate duels to come out on top

Andrey Santos in action against Burnley. (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

The Blues, without Moises Caicedo in the team, managed to compete really well physically, even if they didn’t do quite as well on the ball.

According to Fotmob, they won 36 ground duels and 16 aerial duels to Burnley’s 25 and 14. Tosin was top of the pile there with an impressive 10 duels won to just 2 lost.

Also in the positives were Andrey Santos (7 to 3) Jamie Gittens (6 to 1), Trevoh Chalobah (4 to 3), Enzo Fernandez (4 to 3) and Malo Gusto (3 to 0). When the majority of your outfielders win the majority of their duels, you’re usually going to do OK in a game.

The match against Barcelona tonight is going to be about as different a fixture as you could look for in terms of opposition, but what will remain the same is the need to win individual battles like this. No matter how dangerous Barca are, we can outwork them, outmuscle them and outfight them.

In Barcelona build up news…

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick was also speaking in the buildup to tonight’s game, and he was full of effusive praise for Chelsea, Enzo Maresca, and the whole BlueCo project.

We don’t expect to see Cole Palmer tonight – he’s been very much ruled out by his manager. But there’s no doubt that he’s getting close to a return from injury, despite a unique setback.