By Antony Jordan
The final match of the opening round of Premier League football sees Chelsea welcome West Ham to Stamford Bridge on the first Monday Night clash of the EPL season, but will it be Antonio Conte who leads the home team to victory in his first match in charge or will it be Slaven Bilic, who saw his West Ham side take four points from Chelsea last season, that crashes the party?
We preview this London derby with online sportsbook Bet365.com and provide our conclude our weekend of EPL picks at Stamford Bridge this Monday evening.
Chelsea v West Ham Match Odds:
Chelsea to win – 1.66
Draw – 4.00
West Ham to win – 5.75
Team News:
For the home side the only player issue that new manager Antonio Conte has is that central defender Kurt Zouma remains out injured with a long term injury picked up at the end of last season. Apart from that everyone is fit and raring to go, especially the two £30m plus signings of N’Golo Kanté and Michy Batshuayi. The former of these two is sure to boost Chelsea in the middle of the park to allow the more attacking players to attempt to overturn the poor set of results against The Hammers last season. (freebasstranscriptions.com)
Defender Aaron Cresswell and attacking player Manuel Lanzini are both out of this opening match of the season for West Ham with knee injuries and Bilic will not rush midfielder Dimitri Payet into action after returning back to the club late as he featured in the final of the European Championships in July. However, new signings Andre Ayew and Sofiane Feghouli are likely to be involved in the match either from the beginning or from the bench.
Form Guide:
Chelsea were beaten by Rapid Vienna in their opening pre-season warm up game a month ago, but after this they improved with four wins in their following five matches. They saw off Austrian side Wolfsberger before beating Liverpool, AC Milan and Werder Bremen, while they were edged out 3-2 by Real Madrid in the middle of these four clashes.
They have 13 goals in their last five pre-season games and these goals were shared our amongst the players in the squad, so Antonio Conte and his side will be confident coming into this match, but the big question is will the Italian have his side set up to attack so readily in a competitive fixture?
The one thing that West Ham over their opposition coming into this match is that they have already begun their season as they secured their passage through the third qualifying round of the Europa League as they defeated Slovenian side Domžale 4-2 on aggregate, although they were beaten 2-1 in the away leg of that tie.
They have since played one final pre-season match at the Olympic Stadium as they were beaten 3-2 by Juventus thanks to a late goal for the Italians. However, Bilic and his players, especially Andy Carroll who scored both goals in that match, will be full of confidence but will it be enough to see them triumph against their fellow Londoners?
Head-to-Head:
Before last season Chelsea had won four and drawn one of the last five meetings with West Ham, but The Hammers netted four times against them during the 2015/16 campaign as they won 2-1 at Upton Park and drew 2-2 at Stamford Bridge.
Despite these poor results last season Chelsea have not lost at home to West Ham since 2002, but the visitors will take heart from the fact that they have drawn two of their last three matches. Will this be the season that West Ham secure all three points in West London?
Thoughts:
As well as a good home record against West Ham, Chelsea are unbeaten in 13 opening weekend home matches with ten victories and three draws in this time. Despite all of the historical evidence and the match odds pointing towards a home victory at Stamford Bridge we feel that this match will be much closer.
West Ham are already up and running and they have certainly added to their squad over the summer time while, as Pep Guardiola found out with his Man City side needing a late own goal to win, it can take time to settle a side under a new manager.
We feel that West Ham will give all that they’ve got in this Monday Night Football clash and will certainly find the net in this one. Whether they can end their winless streak at Stamford Bridge is not so clear, but we see an exciting game with goals from both of these sides.