Chelsea-West Ham is a match valid for the sixth day of the Premier League and is played on Saturday at 4pm
On the day of AC Milan-Inter and Everton-Liverpool, there could not miss – just to stay on the theme – a London cross-city, although perhaps less heartfelt than the other two. At Stamford Bridge (West London) Chelsea welcomes West Ham (East London) with the aim of getting back to winning ways after yet another false step in this first part of the championship. Thomas Tuchel’s Blues are having a very poor start to the season, suffering from sub-optimal condition and, above all, a few too many excellent injuries. Two defeats in the last two away matches: first the debacle (3-0) at Leeds, then, in the midweek round, the unexpected slip (2-1) at Southampton. In between was a narrow victory against a Leicester side in crisis, brought down by a Sterling double.
A match, the one with the Foxes, which Chelsea managed to win despite being outnumbered from half-time due to Gallagher’s rather naive sending-off. In any case, there are already a lot of points to make up with respect to the other big teams: Arsenal are +8, while the Champions League zone is still close, just three points away.
Compared to last year, the defence is making water, which has always conceded at least two goals per game with the exception of the debut against Everton, the only clean sheet. To remedy this problem, in the last hours of the football market the club bought Wesley Fofana, one of the highest paid defenders ever (87 million) in Premier League history. In slight recovery West Ham, who after starting with three defeats in a row scraped together four points between Aston Villa (0-1) and Tottenham (1-1). Optimism seems to have suddenly returned to the Hammers, especially after a strong performance against Antonio Conte’s Spurs: it is no exaggeration to say that they deserved more.
Paquetá
The Prediction
It doesn’t give any particular guarantees this Chelsea, a team tried of key players such as Kanté and therefore so far a distant relative of the very solid one we knew last year. West Ham are growing and could create some headaches for Tuchel’s line-up. If the Hammers manage to avoid defeat, in short, it would not be a surprise. At Stamford Bridge the total goals could be at least two.
The Chelsea-West Ham line-up probables
- CHELSEA (3-4-3): Mendy; Fofana, Thiago Silva, Koulibaly; Azpilicueta, Gallagher, Jorginho, Cucurella; Mount, Sterling, Broja.
- WEST HAM (4-2-3-1): Fabianski; Coufal, Kehrer, Zouma, Palmieri; Rice, Soucek; Bowen, Benrahma, Fornals; Antonio.
POSSIBLE RESULT: 2-2
