Chelsea produced a dominant 5-1 victory that exposed West Ham's defensive disorder and prompted visible fan hostility, including early stadium departures, sarcastic applause and a lone pitch invader. West Ham have conceded eight goals in two matches and look like serious relegation candidates after repeated set-piece failures. Cole Palmer withdrew before kick-off through injury, prompting Enzo Maresca to reshuffle his attack and give 18-year-old Estevao Willian a first start, with Estevao rising to the occasion. Joao Pedro scored and Chelsea's squad depth and quality overwhelmed a floundering West Ham side.
This was Graham Potter finding out what a broken club looks like. It is the London Stadium emptying out long before full-time, patience worn thin by the latest in a long line of humiliations. It is fans reacting with sarcastic applause when your new 15m goalkeeper saves a shot with the game already dead and, perhaps more than anything, it is one poor lad mounting a solo pitch invasion after seeing Chelsea go 5-1 up thanks to West Ham's latest failure to defend a set-piece.
West Ham, who have conceded eight goals in their first two matches, are a shambles. They are massive relegation candidates and had no way of coping with the quality of Chelsea's depth, which was summed up by the 18-year-old Brazilian teenager Estevao Willian rising to the occasion on his first start after Cole Palmer pulled out of the game just before kick-off.
Enzo Maresca was forced to rejig his attack, the introduction of Estevao on the right seeing Joao Pedro redeployed as a No 10 and Pedro Neto moved to the left, and the late alterations initially had West Ham thinking that their luck was about to turn after their dreadful performance at Sunderland on the opening weekend. Things being as they are in east London, though, the optimism soon faded.
Collection
[
|
...
]