3/5Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Đorđe Petrović; Trevoh Chalobah; Thiago Silva; Benoît Badiashile; Marc Cucurella; Moisés Caicedo; Conor Gallagher; Noni Madueke; Cole Palmer; Mykhaylo Mudryk; Nicolas Jackson;
West Ham (4-2-3-1): Alphonse Aréola; Vladimír Coufal; Kurt Zouma; Angelo Ogbonna; Emerson Palmieri; Tomáš Souček; Edson Álvarez; Jarrod Bowen; Lucas Paquetá; Mohammed Kudus; Michail Antonio;
For the third time in the last two weeks, Chelsea will play in a London derby. Today, it is at home against West Ham. Both teams are neighbours in the middle of the league standings, but two points lead for the Blues, and a game in hand gives them a fighting chance against Manchester United and Newcastle for the Top 6. In all likelihood, seventh place will also carry a European Conference League quota, but it is debatable how attractive it is for a club like Chelsea.
In the final third of the season, Chelsea is in good form. During the week, we followed up with a 2-0 success over Tottenham at Stamford Bridge, with a dry net that was one of the few for the team this season. Days earlier, however, the Blues made up a two-goal deficit at Villa Park, and a disallowed Axel Dissasi goal in the 95th minute denied them the right to go home with total points.
West Ham fell into a severe hole, which led to them moving further away from the places entitling them to play in the European competitions. In the last two months in England, only Wolverhampton have been beaten. In the previous round, the Hammers finally smashed Liverpool’s title ambitions in a 2-2 draw at the Olympic Stadium in London.
West Ham and Chelsea met back in the second round of the current season, and in that match, David Moyes cleverly managed to outplay the opponent on the counter-attack with only 24% ball possession. The final score was 3-1 in favour of the Hammers. However, I don’t think that the experienced English manager will be able to deceive Mauricio Pochettino again in the dispute between them.
With Cole Palmer in the lineup, Chelsea looks completely different, and today, I expect them to record a tenth win in their penultimate home game of the season. West Ham arrive at Stamford Bridge in terrible form as an away side and lost in seven of their ten away games in 2024. The last of those was a 2-5 defeat to Crystal Palace in one of many city derbies for the London teams.