HARRY POTTER AND THE MISSING £300M OF TALENT
West Ham United 1 Chelsea 1
Graham Potter has come up against West Ham in the Premier League many times before as a manager, but he still has yet to lose. This morning, though, he finds the team behind, or possibly in front of, him are not the team he started the season with. The new money behind Chelsea doesn’t appear to look any different in quantity than it was before under the since departed Abramovic. What is different now, however, is the West London side’s obdurate refusal to kick start their season’s targeting of a European Champions’ League place for next autumn. They sit ninth in the table behind Fulham and Brentford, with even Potter’s previous employers occupying the Europa League sixth place.
It doesn’t matter how many world class footballers you have in your squad, you can never play more than eleven of them at one time. West Ham are almost at the stage where, with their best first team out, they can match Chelsea on paper as well as in terms of performance. Potter’s problem might just be that he is still a long way from knowing exactly what his best XI might look like. Moyes, however, despite West Ham’s disappointing start to their Premier League season, is a lot more certain of the formation and eleven players he would choose with the whole squad available for selection. There is the other curious statistic that West Ham usually seem to triumph over their West London neighbours whenever they play them in the 12.30 Saturday fixture slot.
Mason ‘Monumental’ Mount may well be playing against his great pal Declan Rice for the last time for some time, but they face off this afternoon and the battle is at the centre of this game, a battle that Mount won in this fixture last season, though Hammers won the game with Arthur Masuaku’s smash and grab sliced cross cum shot late in that game.
Once again West Ham start badly and once again they are rescued early by VAR when Felix’s effort, a one two off the post after he’s beaten Fabianski with his initial chip, proves to have been the result of an offside pass. The reprieve, like last week is temporary, as Felix dispatches the clever through ball by X to give Chelsea the lead. The fact that Bowen is assaulted in the move leading to the goal is missed by the referee and his team. Ah well. Incredibly, West Ham then avoid a second Chelsea goal, again thanks to VAR, after Havertz glides past Ogbonna to slot home, but sadly for him he has received the ball in an offside position. Four minutes later West Ham put together their second real attack of the game, and Coufal’s cross is headed on by Bowen to Emerson, arriving late at the far post, to score the equaliser. This seems to wind Chelsea, who offer very little for the rest of the half, and indeed most of the remaining hour of the game.
The second half sees Hammers take control of the game and eight minutes from the end, Souček appears to have clinched the points, slotting home after Rice’s header has been beaten out by Kepa from Emerson’s curling free kick. VAR sticks its neck out again to adjudge Rice offside.
Souček is then involved at the other end, deflecting Conor Gallagher’s effort away to safety. Although it looks initially to have been off his knee, Chelsea complain that they should have had a penalty as they feel the ball has actually come off Souček’s hand. Eager to prove their Chelsea pedigree, BT Sport, covering the match live, suggest the fact that the incident isn’t even looked at by VAR to have been a travesty of justice. Later in the evening MotD will blow the Chelsea trumpet even louder. But the referee Craig Pawson isn’t interested. Chelsea, of course, might have missed the penalty, had it been awarded for the ‘handball,’ which no camera angle actually proves beyond reasonable doubt. Cornet’s PL-acknowledged VAR theft from the game at Stamford Bridge was an actual goal, and a goal that might have kick started an earlier Hammers’ recovery in the league than the one we are thankfully now witnessing.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 24 Thilo Kehrer, 33 Emerson, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 28 Tomas Souček, 18 Danny Ings, 12 Flynn Downes, 2 Ben Johnson
Goalscorer: Emerson
