Chelsea welcome West Ham to Stamford Bridge in a cross-London derby.
Victory would see Chelsea climb further inside the top-ten, whilst West Ham could leapfrog their hosts with a win and potentially enter the top ten depending on results elsewhere.
Team News
Wesley Fofana could be in contention for his debut as a Chelsea player after he joined from Leicester in midweek.
New signings, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Denis Zakaria could also be in contention for their debuts.
Trevoh Chalobah (knee) and Reece James (illness) are doubts whilst Conor Gallagher could return from suspension.
N’Golo Kante and Ruben Loftus-Cheek (both hamstring) are ruled out.
West Ham could welcome Gianluca Scamacca back into contention after he missed their midweek draw against Tottenham.
Craig Dawson (hamstring) could return but Ben Johnson (hamstring) and Nayef Aguerd (ankle) remains absent.
Stat Attack
- Chelsea have won three of their last six meetings against West Ham (W3, L3).
- West Ham have claimed just four points from their last five visits to Stamford Bridge (W1, D1, L3)..
- Chelsea have kept clean sheets in their last two victories against West Ham at Stamford Bridge (W2), winning 3-0 in December 2020 then 1-0 in April 2022.
- Kai Havertz has been yellow carded in each of Chelsea’s two home matches this season.
- Only Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Kurt Zouma have played every minute of West Ham’s four league matches so far this season.
Prediction
Having started their midweek match at Southampton well with excellent attacking intensity and a solid opening goal, Chelsea just suddenly went off the boil defensively which proved costly as the Saints struck back to win amidst excellent second-half goalkeeping from Edouard Mendy.
West Ham meanwhile were extremely wasteful with their finishing in their draw against Tottenham because given their dominance, they really could have won the game if they had produced better end product whilst Thilo Kehrer was unlucky with his own goal but great team spirit to snatch a point.
Now if David Moyes’ Hammers turn up and deliver another high-attacking intensity display with better finishing touches, I do fear for Chelsea because something seems mentally off about their defence like a dodgy switch despite their excellent attacking play.
With those aspects in mind, I seriously can see a score draw coming because West Ham surely won’t repeat Wednesday’s sloppiness, plus will be tougher to beat than Leicester were in Chelsea’s last home match with a fairly solid defence capable of causing issues for likes of Raheem Sterling.
Prediction: Chelsea 1-1 West Ham
Result: Chelsea 2-1 West Ham
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