Chelsea put themselves in a great position to keep on winning in Premier League play. The Blues managed to take down West Ham 5-1 on Friday, Aug. 22, coming back from being down a goal early in the first half.
The fact that Chelsea was able to do this after losing Cole Palmer to an injury was impressive. Beyond that fact, the Blues needed to get into the win column early. It's not a good feeling to be down early in the Premier League standings.
"The ones that say 'we are just a Cole [Palmer] team,' for sure Cole is our best player no doubt," Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said after the match. "For sure with Cole we are much better team, but I think we already showed last year in the two or three months where Cole was not a hundred per cent, when we achieved top four that no one expected."
On Friday, Joao Paolo scored a goal and added an assist to his numbers. Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez added goals in the first half and put Chelsea up 3-1 at halftime. Moises Caicedo and Trevoh Chalobah added goals to wrap up the scoring for Chelsea.
Here's an interesting factoid from the Premier League itself about Chelsea: Under Maresca's leadership, Chelsea has earned more points in Premier League London matches since the beginning of last season than any other side (26 – P14 W7 D5 L2).
"We're unlucky not to go 2-1 up," West Ham manager Graham Potter said. "We scored a good goal, a good reaction from the players. But then again, their second goal is a poor goal from our perspective. We have to do a lot better than that. I think the players will be honest enough to say that. We have to do better."
Chelsea will be back in Premier League action on Saturday, Aug. 30, when the Blues square off against Fulham at Stamford Bridge.