Marc Cucurella feels confident that Chelsea are now on the right track, under Mauricio Pochettino’s leadership, after securing a 4-1 win against Burnley.
Teenager Wilson Odobert gave Burnley a surprise lead 15 minutes in at Turf Moor but Raheem Sterling inspired a turnaround, having a hand in all four goals and getting one himself as Chelsea scored four or more goals for the first time since April 2022.
Coupled with the Carabao Cup win over Brighton at the end of last month, it gives Chelsea some much-needed momentum – and they would no doubt rather not have the distraction of this international window to disrupt it.
Chelsea remain mired in mid-table having won only three of their eight league games to date, but Cucurella believes they are turning a corner as they adapt to the demands of Pochettino and get players back from injury.
“We started the game not so good and conceded a goal but the reaction was very good,” he said. “We created chances and after half time we were very focused on what we needed to do.
“It’s a very good win because we were confident, we scored a lot of goals, so (we need to) keep this momentum because we are in a good moment… It’s only the start and if we continue like this we can have a really good season.
“We have a lot of new players as well and we have young players too. We need to find our team-mates, follow them and become friends and when that happens you fight for them.”
Going into the match, Chelsea had not won on the previous 19 occasions when they had conceded first.
But at Turf Moor, a favourite hunting ground over the years, they turned the match around quickly with goals either side of half-time.
First Sterling’s cross took a wicked deflection off Ameen Al-Dakhil, then Cole Palmer scored the penalty won by his former Manchester City team-mate. Sterling added a third himself before playing a role in the build-up as substitute Nicolas Jackson got the fourth.
“We lost confidence in a lot of games (when conceding first) but here we followed the game plan, kept building, kept fighting,” Cucurella said.
“The confidence is better after two wins in a row. We maybe had a little bit of luck with that first goal but also we believe in each other, in our plan and we got a really important three points.”
Cucurella, who started on the right side of Chelsea’s injury-hit defence, was linked with joining Manchester United during the summer but no move materialised and the Spaniard, a £55million signing from Brighton last summer, insisted he was happy at Stamford Bridge.
“I always said I’m very happy here,” he said. “There were one or two weeks that were a little bit difficult for me but I’m happy – I have friends here.
“Sometimes it’s part of football with moves but now I’m ready to work hard, wait for my opportunity and when it comes to help the team. Then the most important thing is to win games.”
