Cesc Fabregas shines for Chelsea and bursts Burnley's bubble in Premier League opener at Turf Moor

• Chelsea new boy Cesc Fabregas put in man of the match performance against Burnley
• Blues beat newly-promoted Clarets 3-1 in Premier League opener
• Spaniard set up all three of Jose Mourinho's sides goals 

In north London, they perhaps hoped that he would never come back to the Barclays Premier League. At least, if he did, they hoped he would come back home to them at Arsenal.

It was never likely, of course. Cesc Fabregas has always craved challenges and those who do so rarely go back, they only look forward.

That is why Fabregas left Barcelona for Highbury in the first place. He was only 15. 

And that, of course, is why Fabregas - 27 now - considered a move to Manchester United last summer and finds himself at the heart of Jose Mourinho’s evolving midfield at Chelsea.

They may never forgive him at Arsenal. At Chelsea, meanwhile, they will merely learn to love him if he continues to play as he did here.

Of course, it is peculiar to see him in Chelsea blue. We will get used to it soon enough, though, if he produces more moments like the one that lit up the first half at Turf Moor

The technical levels of our sport continue to improve, despite what the romantics say. Still, though, there are some things only certain players can do, even at this exalted level of the game.

Only a tiny percentage of Premier League players, for example, would even have seen Andre Schurrle’s run on the periphery of his vision when the ball was played to Fabregas on the edge of the penalty area midway through the half with the game poised at 1-1.

Even fewer could have picked the pass, first time with his right foot, that allowed the German to advance on goal and score. It was a ‘blink and you will miss it’ moment — the kind of pass you will only see a handful of times each season.

Fabregas (right) was pretty imperious all night and was certainly helped on his Chelsea league debut by a midfield that provided him with willing runners and angles throughout the game.

When you can see things and pass the ball as well as he can, you need moving targets. This is what Fabregas had during his better years at Arsenal and, of course, his time back at Barcelona and with the Spanish national team in recent years.

We have all seen him play as a ‘false nine’ for club and country in Spain but he will be glad to know that is not the role Mourinho has in mind for him at Stamford Bridge. 

‘I know clearly the player he is,’ said Mourinho. ‘In Barcelona he was playing all over. Nine, fake nine, winger but he knows that I know his best position. He gives us what we need in midfield. He brings other people in.’

It may be too early to say this but there did appear to be signs that Chelsea will play a little more expansively over the next nine months than they did previously under Mourinho in either of his two tenures.

If they do, Fabregas - anchored at the base of midfield on Monday night - will be key.

Here, he pulled strings for the likes of Schurrle and Chelsea’s new centre forward Diego Costa and he was, on the whole, the best player in a pretty impressive Chelsea performance. 

Certainly a midfield featuring players like Fabregas, Schurrle, Eden Hazard and the Brazilian Oscar seems set up to move the ball with a little more pace and imagination than some we have seen in the past.

On Monday night it was a style of football that dazzled Burnley at times.

Home manager Sean Dyche will not be too disheartened. The good news, he will have told his players, is that they only have to face Chelsea one more time this season.

Burnley’s campaign will not stand or fall on the back of nights like these. Next weekend they go to Swansea and perhaps we will learn a little more about them there.

On ‘Our Turf’ — as they have branded it — they scored first and briefly a dream loomed large.

Fabregas was the man with the big pin, though, and when he burst the bubble he did so in a way that many people here will remember.