If you asked someone to design a football stadium that ticks none of the boxes that you’d expect a modern ground to, then I’m fairly certain you’d come up with something strikingly similar to the London Stadium.
Frustratingly, the game had been assigned the killer of atmospheres kick off time, the Saturday 12:30. We arranged to meet in a West Ham pub before the game just after 10am, and with a relatively low-key group of us, there was no danger of any issues from West Ham fans pre-game.
It was a fairly standard pre-game meet, with the group only being optimistic ahead of the game. In fairness, there was much reason to be. Enzo Fernández had another week under his belt with his new teammates, Reece James was closer to full fitness, João Félix was making his much-anticipated return and above all else this freshly formed group of players had trained together for another week.
Even better, we had the news that the one and only Thiago Silva had committed to another year at the club. As we discussed the signings of that 2020 summer, David Branch did painfully opt to point out that as good as Thiago has been, it is utterly absurd that a centre back who was signed at the age of 35 somehow ended up being the pick of the bunch.
Having had my ticket checked by security through what felt like at least 30 different checkpoints, I did eventually arrive at my seat. In row seven, it would’ve been better than 90% of the seats in the away end and yet still found itself a good 10 metres away from the pitch. For comparison, a similar seat in almost any other ground in the league would leave you five metres or so max. Worse still, because it’s effectively a giant bowl, having been built to be an athletics ground, the stands are unbelievably shallow. Being 6’3″, it was hard not to feel sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to be in the three rows behind me.
After a trademark ridiculous release of bubbles onto the pitch, the game started brightly. Someone with the most miniscule amount of football knowledge would be ale to see just how much better João Félix and Enzo Fernández are than the rest of our midfield and forward players. A small shoutout to Noni Madueke, who took on the West Ham right side whenever he had the chance. He’s clearly very raw right now as I mentioned last week, but the potential is there for all to see.
It’s impossible not to worry about someone like Enzo Fernández when they come in with a huge £106.8 million fee. With just 180 minutes under his belt in the Premier League, these worries are fast disappearing. This guy is built to play in England and has wasted no time in adapting fast. His passing range was once again outstanding and he had no worries getting stuck into the physical West Ham midfield duo of Declan Rice and Tomáš Souček. I can’t help but feel that a midfield of Enzo Fernández and Declan Rice would quite possibly be good enough to overpower any in world football, whether this ends up being a thing is another matter…
The Fernández and Loftus-Cheek partnership itself worked pretty well. I thought Ruben came into the fray very well, given he’s been out injured for months, and looked comfortable driving forward with the ball whenever he had the chance. My main gripe with him is he’s simply too safe on the ball. Whether it’s having a shot on the edge of the area, or always making the easy sideways pass, he is painfully risk-adverse. Either way, they settled well. The Lucas Paquetá injury was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened to us as. Souček replacing Paquetá coincided with the game near enough being turned on it’s head.
I don’t like to speak badly on players in these write-ups, I don’t really think it adds much to the overall content of the piece. However, it would be impossible to speak about yesterday’s performance without mentioning Marc Cucurella. I was quite happy with this signing at the time, overpriced certainly, but he looked an accomplished player when I’d seen him at Brighton. He looked bright on his debut against Everton, albeit a miniscule sample size, and moved the ball quickly and comfortably when asked. Whether it was a necessary purchase at the time, particularly with the development of Ian Maatsen and Lewis Hall, is another question.
Yesterday’s performance against West Ham, is without a doubt one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a Chelsea player in some time. Not quite Bakayoko against Watford bad, but certainly the next level below. He didn’t seem to have a clue what to do defensively against Jared Bowen and Vladimír Coufal when the pair doubled up on him. In fact, I think the only time he looked somewhat comfortable was when isolated one-on-one. With danger far from averted, he could be seen charging forward whilst West Ham were busy overturning possession.
Emerson’s goal was as preventable as it was completely obvious it would happen. It has been over a month since a former player scored against us and the Brazilian-turned-Italian left back will have left the London Stadium knowing he’s a shoe-in for Garth Crooks’ infamous team of the week.
I also will not hear a bad word about Mykhailo Mudryk’s performance yesterday. With Cucurella behind him he simply didn’t stand a chance. At near enough every opportunity Cucurella would either opt to not pass to him, or drive into the space he occupied and pass the ball inwards, without even considering the Ukranian. Whilst Chilwell looks rusty, he simply needs to start one of the next two games just to take Marc out of the firing line.
Nothing summarised our ability to really create very little in the second half quite like the ever-growing flock of pigeons who were gathering just outside Łukasz Fabiański’s box. The pigeons, in all honesty, had about as much presence as Kai Havertz in the final third of the pitch.
I really want Kai to work out, I was incredibly excited when we signed him back in September 2020, but aside from one night in Porto, it’s really getting quite difficult to justify any reason why he should be here beyond this summer. His only saving grace, should be the fact that he is yet to get an extended run of games playing off a proper number nine. The reality is this however, he has been played around numerous different players and is still yet to give us almost anything to work with. The fact he is comfortably the most offside player this season in the Premier League says it all. He can’t even get the basics right.
What happened in the dying minutes left me truly lost for words. Unlike some, I’m all for the idea of a Video-Assistant-Refereeing system in football. Largely because the current crop of referee’s are completely incompetent. However, when the VAR panel itself is made up from the same referees that are involved with games the preceding and following weekend it becomes completely pointless. Having watched back through highlights in the other games it’s almost like they were under instruction to see just how many outrageous decisions they could make.
I love to have a laugh at Arsenal at the best of times, but even I’d feel bad if they were to lose out on a Premier League title simply because someone at Stockley Park couldn’t be bothered to draw in an offside line.
Actually that would be quite funny.
Laughing at Arsenal aside, for me, the opening 30 minutes of yesterday’s game showed why we simply have to keep patient with Potter. We looked genuinely good as we cut West Ham apart again and again and the reality is we were just a few inches from being three-nil up with West Ham out of the game. I’m convinced this guy is the man who is going to get out of this mess, and am fully prepared to allow him a free-pass until the end of the year.
People need to realise this is less about the money spent, but more so about the fact that Potter is yet to be given actual time to impart his ideas on a fully, or at least half fit squad. It will sound cheesy but I’m all for trusting the process with this guy and giving him the benefit of the doubt for quite a while longer.
Up next, it’s time for some German beer and a visit to the iconic Westfalenstadion in Dortmund. I cannot wait.
The Shed Diaries 