West Ham came out of the blocks fast with an electric 45 minutes that saw them two-nil up at half time: Wan Bissaka and Bowen running riot and the Hammers storming into the lead courtesy of Bowen and Summerville. Chelsea made three changes at half time and the game was transformed.
Suddenly the Chelsea weakness had become their strength as wave after wave came down the left side, and West Ham hearts were broken in the 93rd minute as the Blues came from 2-0 down to win in added time.
Player Ratings
Areola 5 Easy first half with one save and a couple of punches from corners. Stranded for the first Chelsea goal and hopelessly out of position for the second. One finger tip shot-stop in between the Blues’ goals.
Wan Bissaka 6 Storming first half going forward and involved in both the Hammers goals and kept Garnacho quiet looking solid in defence too. Second half on the back foot and looked spent by the time Chelsea’s third went in.
Mavropanos 6 Solid in the air but hardly tested in the first half. Second half reverted to normal and out of position, unable to even get a jump in for Chelsea’s first.
Todibo 6-before the red mist.. One good covering tackle in the first half and stood up well to Delap’s challenges. Second half stayed solid and looked fitter as the game progressed. Hit the post in the 86 th minute with what would have been an unlikely first goal. Failed to get a block on Chelsea’s winner. Utterly pointless red card at the end for losing his head completely.
Diouf 5 Solid enough first ’45 proving that he can defend too. Anonymous in the second half as Chelsea’s left-sided assault began. Replaced by Scarles for last 10.
Fernandes 6 Quiet first half sitting in front of the defence: One good combination with Summerville going forward. Clever free kick routine with Bowen should have led to a third. Crucial block to stop a Chelsea goal in the last seconds.
Soucek 5 Hardworking enough first half alongside Fernandes, anonymous in the second half as Chelsea took back control. Almost combined with Todibo for a winner after some fleet footed wing work (yes, really) in the 85 th minute.
Summerville 8 Storming first half continuing where he left off last week: brilliantly taken second goal and almost had another: Terrified the Blues’ defence. Ran in from the left wing about 50 yards to meet the cross for the Hammers’ second. Quiet second half but rallied in the last 10. Man of the match for that first half performance.
Taty 7 Hardworking and understated, lots of closing down doing what he does best “defending from the front’. Ran
Pablo 7 Distracted Sanchez’ eye getting in the way of the flight of the ball for Bowen’s opener and didn’t stop running all half. Blew himself out by about 65 minutes and was replaced by Wilson.
Bowen 8 Electric first half combining with AWB and destroying Chelsea’s (second string) left- sided defence. Sterner test in the second half awaited with introduction of Cucurella. gB’s Goal was a cross that Sanchez failed to deal with, thanks to Pablo’s flailing boot running interference. Believed to be carrying a knock anyway and replaced on 80′ by Traore.
Substitutes
Kilman for Pablo: Almost – but not quite – did enough to stop Chelsea’s equaliser.
Wilson for Taty : Anonynmous 5
Scarles for Diouf 4
Traore for Bowen : 3 A Pointless yellow card and three step overs.
Harsh realities of Premier League life. ” A game of two halves.” never was it more true. The fact that Chelsea celebrated like it was a cup final tells you how hard they were pushed in that game.
Nuno is just another Potter. Lost all our attacking, forward momentum with his negative substitutions.
Goes all defensive with a team that can’t defend.
Then he complains about us not playing as well in the second half!
Unbelievably bad defensively. Never been anywhere near good enough since Sullivan forced Pearce out.
Very hard to take
Got to be more ruthless in front of goal and
Put away all the chances we had in first half
Should have been all over by half time
So worrying we can not hold onto a lead yet again
Deserved a draw just for the superb first half performance
Again the top teams get all the luck
Traore we don’t want that sort of fight, you cost us a player being sent off but Tobido,no excuse your sending off was costly
still missing that striker that can put them away
Missed our chance today, was there for the taking we took them apart the first half and gave the game to them second half, not good play by them, a poor Chelsea team did not deserve this
Great 1st half but problems created in second half with some players looking knackered.
Chelsea substitutes were of equal quality to those taken off.
Whu don’t have same depth and Nuno’s choices not up to the job.
This leads to more signings needed to give depth required.
Injuries and suspended players are going to cause problems.
Traore (bull in a china shop) led to sending off and was lucky not to get carded, not a good omen.
Why didn’t they just play game out without theatricals.
Chelsea’s reaction showed relief.
Good battle but not result which was needed.
Better choice would be to strengthen midfield in the 2nd half rather than an extra man in defence I feel. Potts on, perhaps also Kante for Soucek, that way you do not invite pressure onto the backline so easily, but push back further up the pitch. So you are playing 4-3-3, or can perhaps bring on Mayers to make it a defensive 4-4-2.
Glad to see Bowen off, because he runs so many miles I’m worried he will not last the season. Just a short break can work wonders. On the other hand I do not think Traore adds much because he is so one-footed and relies uniquely on pace, so you simply shepherd him off towards the corner flag – it is too easy. Put him on on as a no 9 with instruction to run onto balls over the top and harrass the ball carrier from the back for the last 20 mins, if you decide to bring him on. Mind you he did bring a bit of excitement to the game in an unexpected way.
Pity Scarles did not start, thought he was defending better and attacking better too, gaining so much from the few games he has played and there is definitely a lot of good coaching (individual too) going on behind the scenes.
Would be great to have this in a WHU behind the scenes documentary, digging into details a bit.
Nuno is an idiot forwards off defence on 30 mins to go he is clueless
Why o why bring Kilman on Every time he touches the pitch we lose We cant defend to save our lives So we must keep going forwards when we are leading Blow it again and again
Negative subs from Nuno cost us.
Looked like Adama got hit in the face but of course VAR ignore it, we didn’t get many decisions tonight.
1 out of 10 for Nuno
Kilman for Pablo? We were all action and causing Chelsea problems in their half for the first half. We needed to continue with this style.
We have fallen into the trap of changing style when we are in front. Hoping to defend our lead. Best way of defending our lead was to continue causing Chelsea to defend.
Yes, take off Pablo if he’s been rumbled of if he’s flagging. But send on Traore to cause more mayhem up front. We don’t need to score when we’re leading by two but we have to keep the opposition occupied and wary.
What an opportunity. Hope we learn from this. Hope we start with a couple of goals in all future games playing like we did in the first half. Hope we play second halves of future games with the all-action, up and at ’em style of our first half against Chelsea.
One good half doesn’t entitle everyone to relax and save themselves for the next game. Take each game as it comes and put the game to bed for the entire 100 minutes.
We have no Europe. We have no Carabao Cup. Just every league game. 100% effort and offensive pressure.
Sick. COYI
Nuno has to go? Bringing Killian on for a forward? We literally fell apart at this moment? Then Bowen off? Wow? Could Nuno have played this worse? Did Chelsea give Nuno a bag of money? Nuno and Killian must go and you can take Traore with you, absolute joke. 1st half we were amazing, 2nd half looked like a bad championship team which is fitting given where we will be playing soon. Rubbish…
Thank you for the Nuno must go comments.
Once again today, he showed us his Potter side with no spark, inspiration and guidance.
And once again, his great tactic … bring on Kilman to defend a lead … oh boy !!!
And the fact he has again not fixed the centre-back problem will be West Ham’s downfall.
2x Chelsea goals – 2x centre backs at fault. 3rd goal – all 3x centre backs at fault. Simple as that.
Go Nuno, go and join Paqueta + take the hulk with you.
Chelsea were poor first half, we were poor second. We could do without the Todibo red, Adama caused that dust up. Two up at half time and lose three two is the sort of result that can send you down.
Everything good from the first half was destyed by begative Substitutions . It killed all our forward momentum and had us sitting deeper and deeper.
Kilman will probably get panned and blamed, but this is on Nuno. Pablo had to have been replaced by either Wilson or another centre midfielder in potts or magasa.
Spot on mate, 100% agree with you 👍
Such a sad result. After a great first half, the second signaled a bad decline, worsened by Nuno’s substitutions. When Nuno -with a worn out midfield- brought in Kilman instead of Potts (or Magassa), the worst could be feared. And the worst took place. This worrisome defeat, giving up a promising 2-0 first half lead, has the looks of a team on the way to the championship.
Todibo should have won it at the end and then we’d be celebrating it like we’d won the FA cup. Soon as Nuno took Pablo off and replaced him with Kilman I knew the game was only going to go one way though. Seems to happen every time. Take off attackers bring on defenders we have no out ball. we lose the game. Same old thing.
Nuno rating 1 out of 10.
Utterly bottled that, unbalanced the team with his substitutions once again.
The man is not comfortable being in front and just invites pressure on a naff defence.
Worst thing is Kilman starts next game after that red card. Smashing.
Madness
Gutted, worked their socks off but run out of steam. Very pleased with the effort and I’m sure if they continue in that vein we can pull ourselves out of relegation.
If you are going to loose away give it a good go-which we did.
We need a c/back now, 3 game ban for violent conduct?