Chelsea will be looking to avoid a third straight league defeat when they host fellow London rivals West Ham at Stamford Bridge in Round 14. December hasn’t been the best month for Frank Lampard’s charges, with a draw in the CL against Krasnodar followed by losses away from home against both Everton and Wolves, and they’ll be keen to get back to winning ways before Christmas.
The Blues went down 1-0 to Everton as Gylfi Sigurdsson scored what was to be the game’s only goal from the spot midway through the first half. Against Wolves, they took the lead at Molineux through Olivier Giroud, only for Wolves to hit back through goals from Daniel Podence and Pedro Neto- the latter from a brilliant counter attacking move in stoppage time.
The twin defeats have left the Blues 8th in the table, with 22 points from 13 games, and they’re already nine behind defending champions and leaders Liverpool. Defeat could see them slip to as low as 10th, while victory could see them jump to 5th- such is the competitive nature of the league this season.
After a horror start to the season, West Ham have slowly come back on track under David Moyes and are just a point behind their London rivals going into this game. They drew 1-1 with Palace in their last game, with Seb Haller scoring a gorgeous goal. The Hammers might have felt a tad disappointed at not converting it into all three points, especially as Palace played 20 odd minutes with ten men following Christian Benteke’s red card, but having dropped both games to the Eagles last season, this was a result they would’ve gladly taken at kick off.
West Ham are also generally good against big name opposition- they always turn up for games against their bigger neighbours, and actually did the double over Chelsea last season, prevailing 1-0 at the Bridge and 3-2 at the London Stadium. A look at the odds from MrCasinova indicates that Chelsea are still favourites- the last time the Blues lost three in a row in the league, after all, was way back in 2015.
H2H- last five games between the two sides
West Ham 3-2 Chelsea
Chelsea 0-1 West Ham
Chelsea 2-0 West Ham
West Ham 0-0 Chelsea
Chelsea 1-1 West Ham
Moyes has used both five at the back and four ATB in different games this season. West Ham certainly look a stronger defensive outfit when he plays three centre backs, and that might be the way they line up today given the attacking threat that Chelsea possess.
Manuel Lanzini got a half of footy against Crystal Palace after replacing Pablo Fornals at the interval, and might get a start here too. Lanzini scored a fantastic goal against Chelsea four years ago and netted a stunner against Spurs earlier this season, and that knack of scoring important goals against big teams might see him back into the starting XI.
The ref for this one is Chris Kavanagh. Interestingly, neither team have had a game with him in the middle this season. Kavanagh’s last league game was the Manchester derby earlier this month which ended in a drab goalless stalemate.