The London Stadium was a tough place to be after two minutes into the second half. West Ham had just conceded a predictable third goal, allowing Chelsea to play out the remainder of the game in training mode, using minimal amounts of energy.
The atmosphere in the ground had started brightly enough, with Hammers fans more than matching the visiting supporters with unprintable comments about Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s history, and, of course, Frank Lampard. However, by the time Cole Palmer had dispatched West London’s third, there was an eerie numbness in the cavernous former Olympic Stadium.
West Ham had run out of ideas and options, and everybody knew it. Julen Lopetegui jumped around, threw a few tantrums, and generally displayed his displeasure at what was unfolding before our eyes, but he had no answers. Enzo Maresca had completely outsmarted the former Spain and Real Madrid manager, whose decision to deploy Edson Alvarez further back while allowing Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Konstantinos license to advance as far up the pitch as Westfield spectacularly backfired.
The London Stadium was an eerie place to be after Chelsea’s third goal
Of course, West Ham had their moments; Summerville was wrongly denied a penalty, and Mohammed Kudus had a goal correctly chalked off for offside. But there was nothing meaningful coming from West Ham’s players or indeed the bench, and one would suspect that Chelsea had just played one of their easier games this season.
I’m not entirely sure what Lopetegui’s tactical plan was, but he’d better not do it again. Because, make no mistake about it, every other Premier League club was presented with a dossier and blueprint today on how to break down West Ham’s hybrid Alvarez defence strategy.
As was pointed out to me by my partner in crime over at Hammers chat earlier this week, Enzo Maresca has also just started work at Chelsea. Therefore, the suggestion that Lopetegui should be judged as a new manager trying to build and implement tactics is null and void in this game.
The score-line was absolutely reflective of a team that had fully grasped and implemented its manager’s instructions and an opposition that didn’t seem to have a Scooby-Doo what was going on.
It’s still too early to hit panic buttons.
Though it’s concerning that with a pre-season, training and 4 games behind us, the team still seems clueless on how the gaffer wants them to play.
Despite the previous loses I was hopeful that the defence were showing signs of cohesion, albeit with the expected odd mistake from Marvo.
But after 10 minutes of the second half I tuned out.
Everyone forget Moyse, that’s done and dusted, carping on about it doesn’t change the current situation.
However, there had better be some honest talks at training this week, because that showing was poor.
How long have we got with this manager?
I’m still trying to work out what Lopetegui is trying to achieve. It’s like he’s never coached before. If it’s his ambition to make good players look awful, he’s certainly achieving that.
Following the M’s guidelines of making good players look average. I would have thought a former National team coach would know how to set up team, firstly, not to concede an early goal and secondly, play what is in front of them. i.e use their footballing brains.
Here we go again….headless 🐔 running around
.how many goals conceded now …ffs
Not sure I can even blame the players. That loss was down to the manager. Complete lack of defensive nouse. Buy one of the best defensive right backs in the world in wan bissaker and push him up on the right wing the whole time where he can’t get back to defend. Tell your centre backs to throw themselves forward on either side and leave a midfielder back to cover for them. Take off summerville at the point he’s providing your biggest attacking threat on the left. So many things wrong with that performance.