West Ham 1 Chelsea 5: Brazilians make their mark as Blues finally back on top (for now)

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Chelsea strolled to their first win of the Premier League season, coming from behind to thrash West Ham United 5-1 at the London Stadium.

The Hammers had taken an early lead through Lucas Paqueta, but it didn’t take the recently-crowned world champions long to take complete control in East London.

Goals from Joao Pedro, Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez gave Chelsea a 3-1 lead before half-time. Moises Caicedo and Trevoh Chalobah widened the margin before the hour mark to end any hopes of a fightback.

The Athletic’s Simon Johnson picks apart some of the key talking points…

A much-improved performance from Joao Pedro

It has not taken Joao Pedro long to become a fan favourite at Chelsea.

Going from his holiday on a Brazilian beach to being a key part of the FIFA Club World Cup success in July certainly helped with that. Three goals in the semi-final and final sparked much excitement. Still, the 23-year-old had to answer the question of whether he could convert that form into the Premier League from the get-go.

In the disappointing goalless draw with Crystal Palace last week, Joao Pedro barely got a kick and was comfortably marked out of the game. But that was not the case at West Ham tonight.

Chelsea needed his inspiration to recover from a sluggish start. Trailing 1-0, it was his fine header from Marc Cucurella’s flick at the near post which brought the sides level. Perhaps even more impressive was his smart cross to pick out Pedro Neto at the back post, which helped put Chelsea ahead in the 23rd minute.

(Darren Walsh/Getty Images)

He continued to make things look easy as the game went on, making the most of the large amounts of space West Ham’s players gave their opponents. Maresca utilised the Brazil international in the No.10 role following Cole Palmer’s late withdrawal through injury. 

Chelsea’s head coach has said Joao Pedro can operate in other positions and not just as a centre-forward. He proved that here.

What will be particularly pleasing to the Italian is how he combined with fellow centre-forward Liam Delap, who played the traditional role as the main target man. It is something that can be used again in future on this evidence.

Estevao Willian shines on first outing

Estevao Willian offered another example of how quickly a negative can be turned into a positive.

Maresca initially decided not to hand the 18-year-old a full debut despite the teenager’s promising first competitive appearance for the club off the bench last week. But the plan had to be changed this evening when Palmer felt some discomfort in the warm-up and withdrew from the side.

Estevao Willian is comfortable in the No 10 role; he has spoken about his desire to play there for Chelsea and did so in their two warm-up friendlies earlier this month when Palmer was not on the pitch.

But he made his name at Palmeiras by primarily playing on the right — and he showed why against West Ham.

True, it was his careless flick which gifted West Ham possession in the build-up to the Lucas Paqueta goal that briefly had the home side in front. It was the kind of mistake a rookie in the Premier League can make and one he will surely learn from. But instead of being down about it, Estevao responded in the best possible fashion: causing West Ham’s defence all manner of difficulty with his trickery and movement, and eventually winning the player of the match award from UK broadcaster Sky Sports.

His skill to set up Fernandez for Chelsea’s third goal even took some Chelsea staff watching in the press box by surprise. They clearly felt the chance had gone when Estevao took an extra touch as they seemed to cry out in anguish — only to be celebrating seconds later as he got to the byline and hit a superb cross for Fernandez to tap home.

Estevao continued to enjoy himself after the break. The jubilant Chelsea fans in the away end made it clear how high they already regard him after he won a corner just in front of them.

The only thing missing was a first Chelsea goal. He could have had one when sent through, but after cutting inside, the shot was half-blocked and was easily stopped by Mads Hermansen. 

There will be tougher tests to come, of course, but it really is a case of so far, so good for the young man.

(Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

Chelsea are finally back on top…

So Chelsea are back on top of the Premier League for the first time in 1,357 days, with a tip of the hat to the Daily Mail’s Kieran Gill for the stat.

No one at Stamford Bridge will be getting too carried away by the statistic. It is unlikely they will still be there once the weekend’s games are over.

But achieving the feat at West Ham provides a neat bookend. It was losing 3-2 here on December 4, 2021, which last saw them lose first place. They have not been back there until now.

The manner of the victory will be particularly pleasing, especially after falling a goal behind so early on and then going on to humiliate their London rivals.

Any rust from their Club World Cup exploits and short pre-season has been worn away with five goals too, something that will surely lift confidence in the camp that they can be one of the title challengers this season. It sends a bit of a message to the other teams, especially as they achieved the feat without their best player in Palmer.

What did Maresca say?

On Cole Palmer’s withdrawal from the side: “Cole in the last four or five days was not 100 per cent. Today he tried (to join in) the warm-up but he felt something. We prefer to not take any risks of it getting worse and we will see now in the next hours if it is something important or not.

“He has tried to make a big effort for the club, the team, for the fans because he is really keen about the team. Tonight he tried again but he was not (feeling) very good.”

What next for Chelsea?

Saturday, August 30: Fulham (Home), Premier League, 12.30pm UK, 7.30am ET

(Top photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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