Chelsea sneaked back into the Premier League’s top four with a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge to London rivals West Ham on Monday. Pedro Neto and Cole Palmer restored parity for the Blues in the second half.
After surrendering a one-goal lead, West Ham was made to leave the Bridge without any of the points on offer. Having lost to Manchester City in the last week, Chelsea needed to bounce back to winning ways. However, frustrations threatened to boil over on a tempered evening as the Hammers opened the scores in the first half.
Just before the break, West Ham found the back of the net as Levi Colwill’s poor back pass was intercepted by Jarrod Bowen, who kept his cool and slotted beyond Filip Jorgensen. Cole Palmer almost leveled before the break but thanks to Alphonse Areola who at full stretch tipped the 25-yard free-kick over the crossbar.
Enzo Maresca made four substitutions inside the opening 15 minutes of the second half which soon paid off. Shortly after the hour mark, the Blues drew level. Pedro Neto brought in a cross that caused havoc in the West Ham box and they couldn’t clear their lines, allowing the ball to pinball kindly for the Portuguese winger to follow it up and slam home at the far post.
The goal went through a lengthy VAR check for offside after replays but it survived as they couldn’t determine whether Marc Guiu had nodded on Neto’s initial delivery to an offside Marc Cucurella.
Chelsea took the lead with under 20 minutes remaining. Palmer, quiet for much of the evening, dribbled past Tomas Soucek and forced a shot at goal only to deflect Aaron Wan-Bissaka who slid to block it and went over Areola into the net.
Seven minutes of added time were tacked on at the end of the second half, and West Ham went close to a last-gasp equalizer on a breakneck counter, only for Tosin Adarabioyo to block Kudus’ close-range strike. That was as close as the Hammers came as Maresca’s men held on to take all three points.
“It was a tough game, especially mentally. It’s never easy when teams wait and sit back, you need to be patient. There is no space. We shot more than 10 times in the first half and then they score. Second half we come back. Overall, I think we completely deserved to win the game.” Enzo Maresca
Chelsea moved above Newcastle and Manchester City into fourth while West Ham remained 15th and 10 points above the bottom three.
