After a somewhat subdued start to the game, with the two teams probing without much quality for the opening 5 minutes, Lucas Paquetá brought the occasion to life with a piledriver from a long way out that looked impressive at first sight but brought the goalkeeping into question on subsequent replays.
London Stadium was rocking, but Chelsea came a-knocking, and would equalize via the set piece routine we saw repeatedly last week. Marc Cucurella flicked the corner on at the near post and João Pedro
arrived with authority to equalize on the quarter-hour mark.
West Ham almost immediately re-took the lead, but we were saved by the long toes of Todibo, who had strayed just offside beyond Cucurella.
And then Chelsea turned up the style and the quality, and scored twice in two minutes: JP setting up Pedro Neto for 2-1 and Estêvão, starting on shortest notice for the injured Cole Palmer, putting it on a plate for Enzo.
We saw out the rest of the first half at a canter, and despite a couple changes at the half, West Ham didn’t offer any bigger challenge in the second period either.
Enzo had a great chance to make it four before we took advantage of some horrendous defending and goalkeeping on back-to-back corners, with Moisés Caicedo and Trevoh Chalobah scoring our fourth and fifth goals on the night, respectively.
The stadium started emptying and we played the rest of the game out without too much drama. Estêvão had a great chance to make it six while Caicedo made some important defensive plays at the other end.
Carefree.
- Tosin, Gusto, Delap the three planned changes from the first weekend, with Acheampong, James, and Gittens dropping out
- Estêvão the unplanned change after Palmer felt something in pre-match warmups; initial word is that his withdrawal was just precautionary; he sat glumly on the bench all night
- Jorrel Hato makes his debut
- João Pedro with two assists, Neto and Estêvão with one each; no assist given on the Caicedo goal (should’ve gone to the West Ham goalkeeper, Hermansen)
- Next up: Fulham at the Bridge next Saturday
- KTBFFH
