THAT’S NOT MUCH FOR HALF A BILLION!
Chelsea’s big-money signings fade after bright start to keep the pressure firmly on Potter
West Ham 1
Emerson 28 Chelsea 1
Felix 16
THE red of the tangled eyesore otherwise known as the Arcelor- Mittal Orbit next to the London Stadium looked more like rust in the dreary light of a mid-winter afternoon. Supporters trudged towards the stadium. The golden summer of 2012, when the pathways of the Olympic Park were thronged with excitement and joy and possibility, felt like a lifetime ago. West Ham-Chelsea was a match surrounded more by fear and uncertainty than celebration. The point they shared in the gloom did little to alleviate the suffering for either.
There was just one period of sunlight. For the first 20 minutes, Chelsea looked like a team who had been wrought in gold. Their players looked like the gods their transfer fees suggest they must be.
Joao Felix drifted ethereally across the pitch as though he were a wisp that no one could catch. He scored a beautiful goal and played like the elusive, creative No 10 every side crave.
Enzo Fernandez showed some of the energy and orchestration that persuaded Chelsea to make him the most expensive signing in British transfer history. Mykhailo Mudryk, a snip at £88million, was everywhere.
David Moyes, the West Ham boss, said afterwards that if anyone had offered him a point at that stage of the game, he would have accepted without hesitation. It looked as if Chelsea had suddenly taken the great leap forward that their extravagant spending demands and which their manager, Graham Potter, desperately needs to keep muttering discontent among the fans at bay. But then mid-winter returned and the sunlight was obscured.
It would appear that fielding half a billion pounds worth of talent in your starting XI doesn’t buy you a second-half performance these days. After West Ham equalised in the 28th minute, the visitors faded, Fernandez, Felix and Mudryk slipped into anonymity and some fans began to pay more attention to the perambulations of a flock of pigeons on the pitch. If he can find a number for their agent, maybe Chelsea owner Todd Boehly will buy one of them.
Because at the moment, Chelsea are steadfastly refusing to take flight. A point is no good when they started this game 10 points adrift of Newcastle in fourth.
A story on a gossip website suggested last week that Boehly had thought Chelsea qualified automatically for the Champions League and even if that is hard to believe, the danger that his team will not be in the competition next season is starting to grow.
Chelsea might have snatched a win in the dying minutes when Tomas Soucek defended a shot from Conor Gallagher in the West Ham box and inadvertently blocked the ball with the arm he used to break his fall. VAR checked and decided it was not a penalty.
Another chance of a win on the road gone, another opportunity to reduce the distance between them and the top four spurned, another debate about how long he will be given to turn things around under way, Potter addressed the moment when his team’s last shot at taking three points disappeared and sought refuge in humour. ‘I thought it was a good save,’ Potter said. ‘It’s a good stop from Tomas. He got down well. You need your keeper sometimes to get you the points.’
Potter is doing a decent job of holding his nerve. He acknowledged the shortcomings of the second-half performance but said he felt the match represented a step forward. He pointed out that half his team is coming back from injury and the other half is getting used to the pace and rhythm of the Premier League. All the time, the weight of Chelsea’s spending presses down on him.
For two thirds of the match, Chelsea looked flat and uninspired and, having conceded a first-half equaliser to their former left back, Emerson, they were grateful to VAR for rescuing a point for them in the closing stages when an effort from Soucek was ruled out for offside.
The point edged West Ham further away from the relegation zone but it left Chelsea marooned in midtable. It was the eighth away match in a row in which Potter’s side have failed to win. They could do with snapping that streak when they play at Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their Champions League second-round tie on Wednesday. At this rate, they are going to have to win the Champions League to be in it next season.
The visitors had made a bright start and should have made more of a chance in the fourth minute. Felix, back from a three-match suspension and tucking in behind Kai Havertz, created the opening with a clever pass to Ruben LoftusCheek down the inside right channel. If Loftus-Cheek had squared the ball, Havertz would have had a tap-in but he delayed too long and Lukasz Fabianski cut out his cross.
West Ham had another escape soon afterwards when Felix capitalised on a mistake and ran clean in on goal. He deceived Fabianski with a brilliant dink and when the ball rebounded off the post, he prodded it into the empty net. To West Ham’s relief, the linesman raised his flag to signify Felix had strayed offside.
West Ham lost Lucas Paqueta inside 15 minutes to a shoulder injury and when Jarrod Bowen went down after a challenge from Mudryk, some of their players seemed to think play would be stopped again. But when Chelsea regained the ball, Fernandez curled it into the box, Felix peeled away from his marker and was left alone in front of goal. As the ball dropped, Felix opened up his body and sidefooted it past Fabianski on the volley for his first goal for Chelsea.
Bowen forged West Ham’s first
chance midway through the half when his cross was turned goalwards by Michail Antonio but saved at point-blank range by Kepa Arrizabalaga. Chelsea fans celebrated the novelty of leading a match away from Stamford Bridge. ‘How s*** must you be,’ the visiting supporters behind the goal sang, ‘we’re winning away.’
Those chants soon stuck in Chelsea throats. Vladimir Coufal aimed a cross towards Bowen, who glanced it expertly across the sixyard box before Emerson met it and hit a bobbling shot back past Arrizabalaga and into the net.
For all Chelsea’s lavish talent, the sweetest moment of the match might have been Antonio’s brilliant turn that bamboozled Benoit Badi-ashile midway through the second half. It was an isolated shaft of light in what had become a featureless afternoon of attrition.
West Ham thought they had won eight minutes from time when Declan Rice’s header was pushed out by Arrizabalaga and forced over the line by Soucek at close range but VAR showed Rice had been offside. Chelsea’s fans celebrated as if they had just scored the winner but when Soucek’s handball went unpunished, a draw was all they got.