Chelsea suffer from Groundhog Day against Burnley... but is Antonio Conte set to crash like Jose Mourinho?

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Flashback to two years ago on the opening day and Jose Mourinho's champions were reduced to 10 men and held 2-2 at home by unfancied Swansea.

Just like Gary Cahill on Saturday, Thibaut Courtois got his marching orders back then, and the suspicion all was not well with Mourinho was confirmed when he angrily, and bizarrely, confronted club doctor Eva Carneiro as she came off the pitch after treating Eden Hazard.

There was no such nonsense from Antonio Conte, but he must be regretting his comment last month when he said 'wants to avoid a Mourinho season', referring to the 2015 meltdown.

Antonio Conte shouts from the touchline as his champions succumb to defeat against Burnley

Board games

Mourinho had been unhappy with Petr Cech's transfer to Arsenal that summer and wanted to strengthen in a number of positions.

He made his feelings known to the board, much as Conte has this summer. The Italian was doing it again with his line-up, favouring Michy Batshuayi in attack to the £65 million new boy Alvaro Morata.

Conte also started Jeremie Boga, 20, and placed 19-year-old Kyle Scott, Charly Musonda, 20, and Andreas Christensen, 21, on the bench.

Jose Mourinho, like Conte, was left unhappy with the Chelsea board over a lack of transfers

Bookies' favourite

Chelsea picked up just 11 points from their first 12 league games in the season before last and Mourinho departed in December.

Bookmakers, with one eye on making headlines, have Conte as 7-2 favourite to follow Mourinho's lead and get the sack the season after winning the title at Chelsea. To be fair to the bookies, there is a trend developing, with Leicester's Claudio Ranieri suffering the same fate last season.

Conte now leads the bookies' list of Premier League managers most likely to be sacked

History boys

Manchester United are the only side to lose their first Premier League game of a season and still go on to win the title. They've done it three times, in fact, in 1992-93, 1995-96 and 2012-13.

Away day blues

To win away on day one is something special given the context of last season. Burnley didn't win away from Turf Moor until a 2-0 victory at Crystal Palace on April 29 — that's a wait of 259 days from the start of the campaign. Their first away trip in that unfortunate sequence was a 3-0 defeat — at Chelsea, on August 27.

Conte did not lampoon a physio like Mourinho, but the comparisons are concerning