Chelsea were the better side and should have been out of sight by the time James Collins equalised with West Ham’s first shot on target. They profited from Michail Antonio’s inexperience at right-back, taking the lead thanks to Eden Hazard after a foul by the West Ham man, and there were plenty of positives for Antonio Conte, not least an assured performance from N’Golo Kante in midfield. Yet West Ham will fume about Anthony Taylor’s inexplicable failure not to show second yellow cards to Diego Costa and Kante in the second half. Of course Costa scored the winner. Having said that, Chelsea were the better side. West Ham were very poor for long spells. There’s work to do for Slaven Bilic. Thanks for reading. Bye.
Full-time: Chelsea 2-1 West Ham
Diego Costa’s winner gives Antonio Conte the perfect start to life at Chelsea but West Ham will be furious about a highly questionable refereeing performance from the circus’s Anthony Taylor.
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90 min+4: West Ham almost equalise! Carroll wreaks havoc in the Chelsea area but he can’t get his shot away as Courtois closes down the angle. Eventually the ball’s smuggled away thanks to determined last-ditch defending from the hosts. That should be that.
90 min+3: Pedro’s booked for a late challenge on Reid. “Seriously, how is Costa still on the pitch to score that?” asks Niall Mullen. Your guess is as good as mine.
90 min+1: There will be four minutes of added time. It begins with Payet scuffing a shot at Courtois from 20 yards.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-1 West Ham (Costa, 89 min)
Diego Costa, who should have been sent off earlier, scores the winner for Chelsea. The ball’s pumped long and headed down by Batshuayi to Costa. He shakes off Collin and drills it through the centre-back’s legs from 25 yards. It’s accurate enough to beat Adrian low to the goalkeeper’s right. Conte goes mad on the touchline.
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86 min: Moses’s intriguing inswinger from the left is headed away from the lurking Batshuayi by Reid, a crucial intervention. Pedro volleys wide from the right as the ball drops from the sky.
85 min: Chelsea make their final two changes, Oscar trotting off, Michy Batshuayi on for his debut. And Victor Moses, who spent last season on loan at West Ham, replaces Eden Hazard. He’ll be scoring the winner, just so you know.
84 min: Payet skips away from Kante, who chops him down in the centre circle. Like Costa, he gets away without a second booking.
82 min: Oscar almost collects a clever pass from Hazard but he’s denied by a fantastic saving challenge from Reid. Adrian gathers the loose ball.
80 min: Chelsea make their first change, Willian replaced by Pedro.
79 min: Anthony Taylor is having a word with Slaven Bilic on the touchline. I’m not sure why. Bilic’s face is a picture of innocence.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-1 West Ham (Collins, 77 min)
West Ham manage their first shot on target ... and they score! Payet’s corner from the right was headed down by Collins and it reached Valencia, whose swivelling volley was blocked by a Chelsea defender. West Ham briefly appealed for handball but to no avail. Not to worry, though. It fell to Collins, who collected the ball and slammed it to the left of Courtois with his left foot from 15 yards. Crikey, what a finish from the centre-back. West Ham are level out of nothing.
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76 min: Nope. Payet’s free-kick hits the wall and spins behind for a corner on the right.
74 min: Payet floats a free-kick into the Chelsea area from a deep position. It leads to a spot of head tennis and Carroll wins a free-kick after a high foot from Azpilicueta, who’s booked for dissent. It’s on the edge of the Chelsea area. Dimitri Payet is very interested. Hey, West Ham might manage a shot on target here!
71 min: Oscar wins a free-kick for Chelsea around 25 yards from goal. He clips it straight into the wall.
70 min: Payet’s free-kick is headed away by Ivanovic. Courtois hasn’t had to make a save yet. In fact, West Ham have had one shot.
69 min: Mark Noble shows good persistence to win a free-kick deep on the left, drawing Willian into clipping his heels. Payet will take it.
67 min: Dimitri Payet replaces Havard Nordtveit. Will he be able to find a way around the impeccable N’Golo Kante? Hold that thought, though. All of a sudden, a huge roar goes up as Adrian messes around with the ball in the area, allowing Costa to close hm down. Adrian tries to turn away from the striker, who clips the goalkeeper’s shin with his studs as he tries to win the ball. Adrian’s hurt and for a moment it looks like it’s going to be a second booking for Costa. West Ham think he should be off. Anthony Taylor disagrees.
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66 min: Dimitri Payet will be on soon. “Wasn’t Havard Nordveit a trainee CB at Arsenal?” says Kelvin. “I thought he’d come good back for Arsenal then. Hope he does well for the Hammers though.” He was.
64 min: From the second corner, Willian’s delivery is met by John Terry, who heads just wide after beating Winston Reid.
63 min: West Ham are clinging on here. They’re not at the races at all. Chelsea press high and win the ball for the umpteenth time tonight. It’s moved swiftly to Willian, who swerves outside before seeing his low shot tipped wide by Adrian. From the resulting corner, Oscar tries a volley from 20 yards. Collins deflects it wide for another corner.
61 min: Nordtveit wallops a 60-yard pass straight out of play. The Chelsea fans jeer.
58 min: Oscar breaks behind Masuaku on the right and wins a corner for Chelsea. It comes to nothing. But a second Chelsea goal is on the way.
56 min: The game is being played exclusively in West Ham’s half. Chelsea are buzzing.
54 min: Dimitri Payet is warming up. The visitors need him on. All they’re doing is hoofing it to Carroll.
52 min: Slaven Bilic makes the necessary change, replacing Michail Antonio with Sam Byram. Here’s the thing, though: Antonio should be West Ham’s right winger. Bilic barely looked at Antonio as he walked off. Antonio was straight down the tunnel.
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51 min: How long before we see Dimitri Payet come off the bench for West Ham, who are rocking. The disappointing Nordtveit loses possession in West Ham’s half again and Chelsea almost profit, only for Hazard to take long to shoot in the area.
48 min: Michail Antonio is not a right-back.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 West Ham (Hazard pen, 47 min)
Eden Hazard’s reward for a fine performance is to blast the penalty high into the roof of the net. Chelsea deservedly lead thanks to the best player on the pitch.
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PENALTY TO CHELSEA!
46 min: Moments after Diego Costa forces Adrian to save with his feet from a tight angle, Michail Antonio concedes a penalty with a ridiculous piece of defending. He inexplicably gave the ball away by trying to dribble the ball out from the back, lost it to Cesar Azpilicueta, panicked and bundled the Spaniard over. Antonio is booked. There we go.
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46 min: Off we go again. West Ham get the second half underway. There haven’t been any changes. And...
Half-time: Chelsea 0-0 West Ham
Chelsea have had the better of this. West Ham have offered nothing.
45 min+2: Willian curls the free-kick over the bar, towards the top right corner, but Adrian pushes it over for a corner. Azpilicueta heads wide from the opening corner.
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45 min+1: Chelsea win a free-kick around 25 yards from the West Ham goal, Reid fouling Costa.
45 min: There will be two more minutes of this.
44 min: A Chelsea corner on the right. It leads to a scramble and West Ham get it clear. But back it comes. The second attack ends with Masuaku conceding a free-kick on the right.
43 min: West Ham have given up all thought of attacking now. They’re just kicking it anywhere. That early promise has fizzled out and Chelsea should win this match.
39 min: Andy Carroll moves it to Gokhan Tore on the right. He assesses his options, then appears to suffer a total system malfunction, freezing on the spot and simply allowing the ball to roll away from him. Chelsea counter. Oscar swings a pass straight out of play. That might be the worst minute in the history of football.
38 min: Costa shakes off a couple of West Ham defenders with a clever piece of skill to earn a sight of goal from 25 yards but his firm effort doesn’t dip in time, flashing just over the bar.
35 min: West Ham make the change but it’s not Dimitri Payet who’s replacing Andre Ayew. Instead it’s Gokhan Tore, the Turkish winger who never made an appearance during his two years with Chelsea. This is his debut.
34 min: The physio is signalling that Ayew will have to come off. West Ham do get a lot of muscle injuries.
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33 min: Andre Ayew, West Ham’s record signing, has gone down with what appears to be a muscle injury. That’s probably going to be the end of his debut. “Haha!” says JR in Illinois. “Yes! Love that yellow card for Costa. I hope he is unable to adjust to the new application of the rules and gets red carded out of every game he plays. The guy is a menace. The sooner he’s out of the league the better.”
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31 min: With absolutely nothing happening, Eden Hazard decides to do something. West Ham sloppily give the ball away again, and not for the first time tonight, allowing Hazard to run at their increasingly terrified back four. He snakes inside from the left, shifts it on to his right foot, opens up his body and aims for the far corner with a precise effort. Adrian looks beaten but the ball bounces an inch past the left post. That would have been a brilliant goal.
28 min: Hazard spins Antonio on the left and flashes a teasing ball across the face of goal. But no Chelsea player is attacking what was an excellent cross. “If West Ham maintain their away record from last season they will be champions, as playing in the nation’s Olympic stadium they certainly don’t have any home games,” honks Ian Copestake.
26 min: A lull.
23 min: West Ham have acquitted themselves fairly well but they lack creativity with Payet on the bench and Lanzini injured. They’re quite ponderous in the final third.
21 min: This is beginning to heat up. Now Collins buffets Costa over in an innocuous area, his second foul on the striker already, enough to earn him West Ham’s first booking.
19 min: The Chelsea fans behind the goal loudly appeal for a penalty as Oscar falls under a clumsy challenge from Winston Reid. Anthony Taylor ignores the cries but that looks like a generous decision. Then again, I’m not a referee. Oscar won the ball off the dawdling Noble, dropped a shoulder and burst past Reid, whose outstretched arm was enough for Oscar to go over. It was a theatrical fall but there was contact. The upshot of all this is that Costa’s been booked for dissent. Some things never change.
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15 min: Adrian launches a clearance towards the technical area. Conte cushions it to Bilic expertly and the two managers share a chuckle, some banter. Mourinho would have volleyed it into Bilic’s special area. Meanwhile Chelsea are slowly beginning to take control of this game.
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14 min: From an Ivanovic long throw, the ball drops to Hazard on the edge of the area. He chests it down and fires over.
12 min: For all that West Ham possession, Chelsea look menacing whenever they break. After a promising burst from Willian comes to nothing, Branislav Ivanovic almost gives the hosts the lead with their next attack. He cuts inside from the right adroitly and shoots with his left foot before Winston Reid can close him down, forcing Adrian to make a very good one-handed save down at his near post. The corner comes to nothing.
10 min: Costa clearly fancies his chances against Collins. He isolates the big centre-back and threatens to run him into the area. Yet Collins times his tackle perfectly, making sure not to go to ground as he robs Costa. Watch and learn, Alberto Moreno.
8 min: West Ham are still enjoying most of the possession. Noble nicks it off Kante on the edge of the area but he’s falling as he shoots and scuffs his effort tamely.
6 min: This is poor defending from Gary Cahill, though, a clumsy foul on Carroll as they tussle for the ball in the air. A free-kick to West Ham on the left, then. With Payet on the bench, it’s taken by Valencia, who slams it in low. It’s deflected off Ivanovic and into the six-yard box, but a free-kick is awarded for pushing on Thibaut Courtois.
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5 min: West Ham are enjoying a decent spell of possession but Chelsea look tight and compact. The home side look happy to sit off and let the visitors have the ball in relatively harmless areas. Possession? Overrated.
3 min: West Ham deal with the free-kick and moments later Carroll wins the ball off Kante, who brings him down from behind. He’s booked, much to the annoyance of the Chelsea fans.
2 min: Costa turns in the middle of West Ham’s half and he’s got space to attack. He runs at Collins, who dumps him over at the expense of a free-kick.
And we’re off! Chelsea, kicking from left to right in the first half, get the game underway at a noisy Stamford Bridge. It’s a lovely evening in west London.
Here come teams. Chelsea in blue. West Ham in claret and blue. It’s time for The Liquidator. “I like Bilic but I really think it is a blind spot,” says Mak Imamovic. “It might have something to do with him playing under notorious 352 radical Miroslav Blažević, alongside Mario Stanić who started his career as a striker, moved to right wing, and ended up as RWB in that famous Croatia squad in France ‘98. Antonio is a very similar type of player to Stanić and even if they’re not playing with literal wing-backs he obviously doesn’t trust ‘classic’ -defend-first FBs either.”
“Does every decent manager have a blind spot?” says Ian Copestake. “Michail Antonio seems to be the Moreno to Klopp’s Bilic, if that makes sense.”
Antonio’s going to score the winner, isn’t he.
“Having seen West Ham play in Ljubljana a few weeks ago, where Antonio spent more time on the ground than the rather rambunctious & tipsy Kray wannabes sitting nearby, yes, very much a blind spot,” says Murphy Mediji. “He’s magnificent going forward - we know this... but he’s simply rubbish in tracking back from midfield into his own corner... tracking back from up front into midfield is a different matter I suppose, but still...”
I would not be surprised to see a Chelsea goal that features Eden Hazard streaking into acres of space down the left.
West Ham haven’t won on this ground since 2002. Paolo Di Canio scored a good goal.
West Ham conceded 20 goals in their final 10 fixtures last season, a leaky run that coincided with Michail Antonio’s switch to right-back. Slaven Bilic has faith in him. He really thinks this is going to work. He’s got Sam Byram, a right-back, on the bench. Is this his blind spot? Or is he on to something?
“Following on from my shock on Saturday that Arouna Kone was Still An Everton Player, I see that Victor Moses is Still A Chelsea Player,” says Christopher Faherty. “Have you got a West Ham nomination Jacob or from another team around the league?”
Wayne Rooney.
“I note that the FA have introduced a change relating to the number of players allowed to confront a referee: Previously, if three or more players approached a referee in a confrontational way, the club faced being charged with misconduct, if the incident was reported,” says Justin Kavanagh. “Now, that number has been reduced to two or more players. So it’ll be interesting to see how Diego fares alone in this role this season.”
For Chelsea, there’s a debut for N’Golo Kante in front of that familiar back four – Antonio Conte isn’t playing the 3-5-2 from his Juventus and Italy days – but Cesc Fabregas is on the bench. A sign of things to come? He’s joined there by Michy Batshuayi, the new signing from Marseille, with Diego Costa preferred up front. For all the talk of change, 10 of these players started on the opening day for Chelsea last season. The change is Kante for Fabregas.
As for West Ham, there are debuts for Arthur Masuaku at left-back, Havard Nordtveit in midfield and Andre Ayew in attack. Dimitri Payet and Angelo Ogbonna are on the bench after their Euro 2016 exertions. So’s Gokhan Tore, the Turkish winger who has signed on loan from Besiktas. However the new signing from Valencia, Sofiane Feghouli, is injured. Aaron Cresswell, Diafra Sakho and Manuel Lanzini are also out. The potential weakness for Chelsea to exploit is Michail Antonio at right-back. Bilic continues to persist with him there. Antonio is going to have to be very disciplined against Hazard tonight.
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The teams!
Chelsea: Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Kante; Willian, Matic, Oscar, Hazard; Costa. Subs: Begovic, Aina, Fabregas, Loftus-Cheek, Moses, Pedro, Batshuayi.
West Ham: Adrian; Antonio, Collins, Reid, Masuaku; Nordtveit, Noble, Kouyate; Ayew, Carroll, Valencia. Subs: Randolph, Byram, Ogbonna, Obiang, Oxford, Tore, Payet.
Referee: Anthony Taylor.
“It’s great Conte continues the post-Jose tradition of nose-up-end of underperformers responsible for the latter’s ouster,” says Patrick Sullivan. “The signs of “Hang your head in shame” are now replaced with “I am happy that Diego stays here to work with us.” If I rewarded bad behaviour of my 4 year old like this, child services would be knocking. We’re building a house of very expensive, poorly crafted cards that fold in the lightest of wind.”
Preamble
Hello. The first weekend of the season is no time to for sweeping judgements. It’s far too soon to be sure about anything. But there have been a couple of indications that normal service has been restored at the top, that Leicester City’s insurrection may well have been a one-off. Yesterday Manchester United won a fixture they lost last season, beating Bournemouth in Jose Mourinho’s first game in charge. Manchester City were promisingly peppy in the first half against Sunderland on Saturday evening and ground out a win. Arsenal ... well, y’know. Moving on, then, Liverpool impressed during that blistering 20-minute spell either side of half-time at the Emirates. Overall it’s been a strong start from the big boys – and a bad one from Leicester, who lost to a Hull City side that was supposed to be mired in crisis.
But perhaps the clearest indication of whether there’s going to be more of last season’s unpredictability will come from this fixture. The Antonio Conte era starts here, with a home game against Slaven Bilic’s refreshingly entertaining West Ham United side, and while the former Juventus manager arrives in London with a strong reputation after his star turn at Euro 2016, no one is quite sure what to expect from the new Chelsea boss. If everything goes to plan from a Chelsea perspective, expect to see invigorated performances from the likes of Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and Eden Hazard, whose pungent performances were some of the main causes for the need to fumigate Stamford Bridge this summer. Conte, after all, played a major role in the revival of Juventus, winning three consecutive Serie A titles, and he almost took an underwhelming Italy team to the last four in France. The signs are that Chelsea have found an astute tactician and a manic man manager who will inspire absolute devotion from his players. N’Golo Kante should plug a few gaps in midfield and Michy Batshuayi offers speed and quality up front.
Conte’s record inspires optimism – and yet it is unwise to assume that all of Chelsea’s weaknesses have been eradicated simply because of a managerial change. A dark cloud hovered over Mourinho’s head last season and poured acid rain on anyone who dared stand near him. Yet Chelsea hardly exploded into life after his departure in December, defensive reinforcements are yet to arrive and a mooted move for Romelu Lukaku remains up in the air. West Ham challenged for Champions League qualification last season, finished seventh and were excellent against the top sides, securing several famous wins at home and on their travels. They’ve made some good signings and if they play well against London rivals who have lorded it above them for the best part of 20 years, it will suggest that the Premier League has indeed become more equal. This fixture isn’t the home banker it would have been a two or three seasons ago.
Kick-off: 8pm BST.
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