Three things we learned from Chelsea win as Pedro Neto cements status and summer signing shows positive signs | OneFootball

Liam Delap endured another difficult afternoon leading the line as summer signing awaits first Premier League goal for Chelsea

Goals either side of the interval from Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez ensured there was no slip-up from the Blues, who prevailed 2-0 and have now won each of their last eight Saturday lunchtime kick-offs in the Premier League.

Pedro Neto at it again

Standard Sport analysed this week how Pedro Neto has flown under the radar to quietly become one of the key players of Maresca’s 17 months in charge.

Neto wheeled away in celebration and is a player full of confidence right now. Indeed, having scored only one goal in his first ten games of the season for the west London club, he now has three in his last six since the return from the international break in October.

On target: Pedro Neto

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In the second half, he became even more of an out-ball down the right as Chelsea played with a different profile of right-back once Reece James had come off at half-time and Trevoh Chalobah operated as more of a right centre-back.

Neto almost scored against when Martin Dubravka saved his low shot against the post in the second half and was then heavily involved in Chelsea’s late assurance goal. He can bring this confidence into the Barca game on Tuesday.

Gittens finding his feet

Jamie Gittens is still finding his feet since his £48.5million move from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, but there were positive signs at Turf Moor, just as there have been over the past month or so for the England Under-21 winger.

Gittens cut in off the right and whipped in a fierce in-swinger which Neto met at the back post — Gittens with the very first Premier League assist of his career and his fifth goal contribution in his last seven games for Chelsea.

As the game wore on, he took more risks and more of them paid off, displaying real technical quality with a sublime first touch from one cross-field Tosin Adarabioyo diagonal ball and then the hunger to use it and burst forward with a foray towards the box.

Delap's struggles

It was another frustrating outing for Liam Delap, as the Chelsea striker tries to get to grips with playing for a possession-dominant side — an entirely different proposition from playing with the space Ipswich Town had to counter-attack into last season.

The £30m summer recruit produced a couple of really smart turns, holding the ball up and pivoting round the corner and beyond his marker.

But these moments did outweigh the fact that the Englishman struggled to make good connections on the ball when crossing for Neto and picked the wrong decision on a couple of occasions, shooting from range when a pass was the better choice.

Frustrating: Liam Delap

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That spoke to Delap’s shortage of confidence and his need for a goal to play himself into form.

Delap and Joao Pedro were not able to link up in the way Maresca would have liked, and both were taken off in the second half.

It was just Delap’s luck that late substitute striker Marc Guiu ran the line excellently in the space Burnley afforded him and forced the second goal as he pulled back for Fernandez.