Zian Flemming hopes that his goal and the draw against Chelsea can serve as inspiration for Burnley in their fight against relegation. The Dutchman scored his sixth Premier League goal on Saturday for the team currently sitting nineteenth in the standings.
Zian Flemming came away from Stamford Bridge with a mixture of pride and frustration after his dramatic late header rescued a 1-1 draw for Burnley against Chelsea.
The Dutch forward, one of Burnley’s most consistent attacking outlets this season, struck in the dying moments of stoppage time to secure what could prove a vital point in the club’s battle to avoid relegation.
Burnley had been chasing the game for long stretches, but the mood shifted after Chelsea were reduced to ten men following a straight red card for Wesley Fofana with around twenty minutes left. From that moment, the match began to tilt. Burnley pushed higher, played with more conviction, and started to believe that something could still be taken from the game. Flemming summed it up simply after the final whistle, explaining that the longer a team stays alive in a match, the more faith grows that a positive outcome is still possible.
With Chelsea down a man, Burnley’s approach became far more direct and aggressive. Instead of focusing on protecting themselves, they were able to commit bodies forward, win territory, and sustain pressure around the Chelsea box. The Clarets forced set pieces, recycled possession quickly, and tried to pin the home side back. Flemming pointed to the red card as the key turning point, saying that it allowed Burnley to think more about attacking and made it possible to put Chelsea under real pressure in the closing phase.
The equaliser came exactly from the kind of situation Burnley had been working to create. James Ward-Prowse, recently added to the squad and already a clear weapon on dead-ball situations, delivered a corner with the precision he has built his reputation on throughout his career. Flemming attacked the space, timed his movement well, and guided a header into the net to make it 1-1. It was a classic set-piece goal: a quality delivery, a decisive run, and a clean finish under pressure.
Afterwards, Flemming joked that he could barely remember much of the moment itself, a common reaction when a key goal arrives in such chaos and emotion at the end of a match. But he did not hesitate when speaking about Ward-Prowse’s ability. Even though the midfielder has not been at Burnley for long, Flemming stressed that everyone in the squad already knows what to expect from his delivery. Ward-Prowse can put the ball exactly where he wants, and in this case Flemming said he simply had to attack it and meet it.
What made the late equaliser even more striking was that Burnley did not stop there. Just before the final whistle, they were inches away from turning a point into a huge three-point swing. Another Ward-Prowse corner caused problems again, and Jacob Bruun Larsen found himself in a promising position, only for his header to drift just over the bar. It left Burnley with a sense of what might have been. Flemming admitted that, in the end, they could even have taken all three points, and that is the part that stung slightly. He was careful not to criticise Bruun Larsen, but he could not hide the feeling that Burnley were incredibly close to pulling off an even bigger result.
The draw, however, still leaves Burnley in a precarious position. They remain in the relegation zone, sitting nineteenth in the table, and even a hard-earned point does not dramatically change the outlook. The gap to safety is still eight points, with Nottingham Forest currently occupying seventeenth place. That margin underlines the size of the task ahead: Burnley need more than spirited late moments, they need a run of results.
Still, Flemming insisted the fight is far from over. He pointed out that there are eleven matches remaining, and while every team sits where they deserve to at this stage, seasons can still turn quickly if momentum is found. Burnley, he said, are not giving up. The gap is big, but the belief remains that the club can produce a strong finish to the campaign. His closing message was aimed at hope and togetherness: the team wants to deliver an ending to the season that supporters in Burnley will remember for a long time.
For Burnley, the performance at Stamford Bridge offered both a reminder and a warning. The reminder is that, even in difficult circumstances, they have players capable of producing decisive moments, especially when they can apply pressure and make set pieces count. The warning is that their margin for error is shrinking fast. If they want survival, they will need to turn moments like this into wins, and they will need to do it soon.
Updated: 06:38, 21 Feb 2026
