West Ham United avoided dropping into the Premier League’s relegation zone on Saturday with a 1-1 draw with Chelsea.
Emerson Palmieri’s first Premier League goal for the Hammers in the first half at the London Stadium earned a point against his former side, cancelling out Joao Felix’s first half opening goal.
In what was a game that saw three goals ruled out for offside and visitors Chelsea harshly denied a late penalty, here are the major talking points from the Saturday lunchtime London derby.
READ NEXT: West Ham player ratings: Emerson haunts former side Chelsea to earn Hammers a vital point
Building consistency
West Ham’s 2023 has seen them gradually improve after a poor 2022 in the Premier League. While they have only won one of their five league games this year, three of the other four have ended in draws, with their last two coming against some of the division’s better sides in Newcastle United and Chelsea.
While results have been consistent, the same cannot be said for the performance of West Ham in the opening portion of the game. Felix thought he scored the opener and opened his Chelsea account in the process when being put through on goal and chipping over Lukasz Fabianski, smashing in from close range after his initial effort hit the post.
Felix then did put the Blues ahead when latching onto a cross from new British record signing Enzo Fernandez, evading Nayef Aguerd to volley in Graham Potter’s side’s opener.
West Ham’s struggle at the back almost continued when Kai Havertz found himself through on goal after a driven pass from Mykhalio Mudryk, finishing before being narrowly judged offside after a VAR check.
West Ham did find a way back into the game before the break, despite being close to being well out of it a good way away from half-time. Minutes after Michail Antonio’s flick forced Kepa Arrizabalaga into his only required save of the game, it was a move down the right that got the Hammers level.
Vladimir Coufal’s cross found an unmarked Jarrod Bowen, whose header across the box evaded Chelsea’s back line, with Emerson latching on at the back post to put West Ham level against his former side.
The second half was a largely drab affair, but it built itself up for a grandstand finish, just like the previous meeting between the two sides five months ago.
West Ham thought they had put themselves in front late on when Declan Rice’s header off an Emerson free-kick was saved by Kepa, but bundled in on the rebound by substitute Tomas Soucek. A long VAR stoppage found Rice and Soucek were both offside at Rice’s initial header.
Minutes later, the game's major talking point happened with little time remaining, again involving Soucek. Visiting substitute Conor Gallagher’s late shot was blocked by Soucek, who quite blatantly blocked it with his hand. No penalty given and Chelsea were left rightfully aggrieved.
West Ham can take it as some justice after being robbed of a point at Stamford Bridge in September, with Maxwel Cornet’s last-gasp equaliser harshly ruled out.
After their home win against Everton and draws with Leeds United, Newcastle and Chelsea, West Ham have gradually improved, despite a number of things going against them. They got the luck of the draw against Chelsea, something they will happily accept heading into a trip to Tottenham Hotspur in a week’s time.
VAR at it again
For the second meeting running between the two sides, VAR stole the show for all of the wrong reasons. The three disallowed goals for offside were all correct, but the late handball decision looked far from it.
Chelsea boss Potter said after the game on the handball: "I thought it was a good save. You need your goalkeeper sometimes to get you the points." Clearly ironic, but something West Ham will see the funny side out of. Soucek himself certainly did, telling West Ham’s club media after the game that his dad used to be a goalkeeper.
The incident could be potentially seen as karma after Cornet’s wrongly disallowed leveller in September. However, Moyes did not see it that way when it was put to him.
“No, it can never be in comparison, never put that in comparison of what happened to us at Chelsea. Not even close,” said Moyes.
“Because the other one was game-changing for us and at different times. I don’t think that. I’ve not seen it so I can’t comment on the handball that they are talking about today. I actually didn’t know about it until I came into the press office and hear what the television thought about it.”
It could be argued that had Chelsea won a penalty in the final minutes with the score at 1-1, it certainly would be game-changing. Either way, another London derby where VAR grabs the headlines.
Rice vs Fernandez
Some of the pre-match billing was talking about the battle in midfield between Rice and Fernandez. Moyes’ prediction for the next British transfer record against the recent record holder.
Fernandez did look among Chelsea’s better players, but on a few times, Rice did get the better of him, including making a lung-busting run to stop Fernandez crossing at the end of an end-to-end counter attack off a defensive mishap and a blistering Mudryk run.
Fernandez ended the game with an assist and Rice very nearly had something similar, had he and Soucek not been offside at the late free-kick.
Rice’s performance was largely good, not his best but nowhere near his worst. That, combined with Moyes revealing that Rice played the duration with a virus, he certainly gave a good account of himself.
The performance also came hours after former Liverpool midfielder and manager Graeme Souness published a column to say Rice is not a midfielder and instead, should be a centre-back. Off his showing when not fully-fit, then clearly did not seem to be the case.
Injury crisis returning
West Ham ended the game with just 16 fit senior players, including the ill Rice.
On top of absences for goalkeeper Alphonse Areola (hamstring), striker Gianluca Scamacca (knee), centre-back Kurt Zouma (thigh) and winger Maxwel Cornet (calf), left-back Aaron Cresswell was also sidelined through a virus.
The situation was made even worse in both halves. Midfielder Lucas Paqueta lasted less than 15 minutes, suffering a shoulder injury that has led to some fears of a potential flare up of the issue that kept him out for a few weeks and ruled him out of trips to Liverpool and Manchester United.
Centre-back Nayef Aguerd, whose debut season in England has been largely affected by injury, was also forced off with ten minutes to go.
The hope will be that Paqueta and Aguerd’s injuries are not serious, Cresswell will be over his virus by next week and that Scamacca’s hoped return to training happens, as well as positive news on others absent.
If that does not happen, a few more of the under-21s could be used to make up the numbers at Spurs, if injury recoveries do not happen in the coming days.
The Emerson role
Emerson’s chances of a place in West Ham’s team have been a long time coming, but now he is going, West Ham will need to keep capitalising on it.
His goal was a proper wing-back to wing-back goal, Coufal’s cross being turned in by Emerson, via Bowen’s headed flick on.
The system allows Bowen and Said Benrahma to play nearer to Michail Antonio up front and it gets Coufal and Emerson into more dangerous forward areas.
Cresswell, who had played ahead of him for most of the campaign, failed to really get the most out of his attacking intent. In Emerson’s last two home games, he has scored, hit the bar and put in the free-kick that had briefly put West Ham ahead. Positive signs and a creative spark West Ham have missed recently.
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