Chelsea battle back to shrug off early set back and beat West Ham

Chelsea fought its way back at the London Stadium to win against West Ham, having initially gone down 1-0 but eventually winning 5-1 on Friday night.

Lucas Paquetá, fresh from clearing his name from betting allegations, shocked Chelsea and fans by launching West Ham into the lead just six minutes in with a long range effort which beat Sanchez. Despite the quality of the strike, Sanchez did not cover himself in glory, as it was an attempt you'd expect a keeper of his pedigree to have saved.

It didn’t take long for Chelsea to fight their way back in, with Cucurella’s flick on from a corner being headed home by Joao Pedro. Pedro’s goal almost became irrelevant, as 60 seconds later Füllkrug would have restored West Hams lead, had it not been for half a boot, the margin X was  offside in the build up to the goal.

As if you needed more controversy in East London tonight, Chalobah won the ball back from Paquetá, which West Ham argued was a foul, and whilst the goal scorer laid hurt on the ground, the ball was crossed in for Pedro Neto to put the West London side into the lead in the 24’.

West Hams early hopes of competing today were broken by Chelseas third in the 34’, as Estêvão burst down the right hand side and rolled the ball across the six yard box, beating the outstretched limbs of West Ham defenders and finding Enzo Fernández for a tap in.

Hermansen’s nightmare continued as Chelsea's corner was flapped at and spilt by the Danish goalkeeper, with Caicedo all alone at the back post to punt home the fourth of the evening for Chelsea at 54’. This signalled to the crowd it was time to head towards Stratford Underground Station.

Any East Enders who decided to see out the game may have regretted their decision to not leave, as only four minutes after 4-1 another corner saw Chalobah make it 5-1 after a complete mess in the box from the defence.

Sanchez made up for earlier mistake in the 68’ with an outstanding save, keeping out Soucek after he volleyed an effort from the edge of the box into the ground and it bounced up threatening to find the top right hand corner. West Ham seemed to gain a second wind after this, creating far more chances involving Wilson.

Cole Palmer, to the upset of many FPL managers, did not feature having felt a twinge in warming up. The medical staff did not see the point in risking the Englishman’s health in the opening game of the season, and elected to remove him from the match day squad. Is this the hang over from the Club World Cup?