Stamford Bridge
Premier League
Sunday 24th April
Chelsea 1
West Ham 0
 |
| Christian Pulisic celebrates his late winner (Getty Images) |
Chelsea returned to winning ways at Stamford Bridge thanks to a late Christian Pulisic strike, as The Blues edged past ten men West Ham in a rather lacklustre London derby.
Following a quiet first half in West London visiting goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski was finally called into action just before the hour mark, with the Pole having to scramble across his goal to parry away a Trevoh Chalobah strike from range.
Ten minutes later and it was Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy’s turn to make a save. Andriy Yarmolenko got in behind but the Ukranian was twice denied down low by Mendy from an acute angle.
With less than ten minutes left Thomas Tuchel’s men were granted a golden opportunity when Romelu Lukaku was pulled down in the area by Craig Dawson, and following a VAR review Michael Oliver gave Dawson his marching orders reducing The Hammers to ten men. This dismissal being West Ham’s third of the Premier League season. The ever-dependable Jorginho stepped up to take the penalty, but the Italian’s tame penalty was saved with ease by Fabianski to keep the game tied at 0-0. This being the first time Chelsea have failed to score from the spot in the Premier League this season.
In spite of this setback the hosts rallied again and with less than a minute left on the clock Marcos Alonso found Pulisic in space in the area, and the American slid the ball into the far corner for his 5th goal of the season.
An eighth home win of the season for Chelsea sees them go five points clear of London rivals Arsenal in the table, with The Blues also picking up their 14th clean sheet of the league season.
Defeat for West Ham means now they are now six games without a win in the league whilst their wait for a league clean sheet stretches to six games.
By Nathan Williams
Lovely like Joe Lolleh
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