West Ham blot Maurizio Sarri’s copy

Chelsea’s perfect start to the Premier League campaign stalled at the London Stadium.

West Ham blot Maurizio Sarri’s copy

[team1]West Ham[/team1][score1]0[/score1][team2]Chelsea[/team2][score2]0[/score2][/score]

By Ian Winrow

Chelsea’s perfect start to the Premier League campaign stalled at the London Stadium.

A first clean sheet for West Ham ensured disappointment for Maurizio Sarri for the first time since he took charge at Stamford Bridge. The Italian, though, had few grounds for complaint.

Sarri offered a balanced reaction to his side’s failure to find a way through a Hammers team slowly rebuilding confidence after a chastening start: they had four successive defeats, before last weekend’s victory at Everton.

The Italian has maintained his side is a work in progress and having seen West Ham fail to convert three clear chances — including Andriy Yarmolenko’s misdirected, close-range header, which will surely give the Ukraine winger nightmares — knows the outcome at the London Stadium could have been far, far worse.

The Italian refused to blame the delayed return from Thursday’s Europa League trip to PAOK Salonika, which meant his players arrived home on Friday afternoon, rather than early that morning.

There was a certain weariness to Chelsea’s play, with Eden Hazard failing to reach the levels of recent weeks, and, without that added spark, they lacked the incisiveness required to deliver the three points that would have ensured they kept pace with Liverpool at the head of the Premier League table.

“We had seven chances to their three, but I knew that West Ham are a very good team,” he said.

“I don’t know why they lost their first four matches in the league, but they are really a very good team.”

Maybe now in confidence after they won away against Everton. And so, maybe we could have done better in the last 25 minutes of the first half.

“Then, I think that we have played very well... well in the second half, generally, but very well only in the last 25 minutes. So, it’s impossible to win every match. It’s okay, one point, for today.”

Certainly, West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini had just as much cause to feel frustrated.

Chelsea might have dominated possession for long periods, with Declan Rice providing an impressively robust screen in front of the back-four, but the decisive moment in the game came in the 78th minute, when West Ham substitute, Robert Snodgrass, cleverly worked space on the left and delivered a curling cross towards the back post.

Yarmolenko lurked unmarked, before connecting with a header, just six yards from goal and with Chelsea keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga floundering. The collective gasp among the home supporters told its own story, though, as the winger somehow managed to direct the effort wide.

“Maybe it seemed easier to score than miss,” admitted Pellegrini.

“Maybe he relaxed a bit more. But there were two very clear chances for Antonio in the first half.”

The miss summed up elements of this match. Both teams did well in parts and, for West Ham, this marked a significant building block in their efforts to establish a new identity under Pellegrini.

They offered more determined resistance than they had in previous weeks and had Marko Arnautovic not been ruled out with a knee injury, may well have claimed a second win.

Arnautovic’s more instinctive eye for goal might have delivered greater reward in the first half, when Antonio twice failed to beat Kepa.

The first chance came in the 29th minute, following a deft touch by Felipe Anderson, which took Cesar Apilicueta out of the game, before the Brazilian played in Antonio on the left-hand side of the box. Unfortunately for Pellegrini’s side, the makeshift forward sliced a left-foot effort well wide.

Two minutes later, an even better chance arrived, when the ball broke into Antonio’s path, following Yarmolenko’s persistent run, only for the forward to snatch at the chance and see his close-range shot well-saved by Kepa’s legs.

Chelsea had their own opportunities, the best of which came midway through the second half, after Hazard had won a corner.

A loose ball canned off a home defender and into the path of Alvaro Morata, whose attempt to lift the ball over Lukasz Fabianski succeeded only in hitting the West Ham keeper full in the face.

Sarri again said that his side have some way to go before they will be fully in tune with his demands, as he attempts to impose a different way of playing on the team.

“We need to move the ball quicker, I think,” he said.

“We need more movement without the ball. We are improving in the defensive phase. In the last two or three matches, we’ve done very well. But we have to improve in the offensive phase, especially in this kind of match.”

WEST HAM UNITED (4-3-3): Fabianski 8; Zabaleta 7, Balbuena 6, Diop 6, Masuaku 6; Noble 7 (Sanchez 86 mins), Rice 9, Obiang 6; Yarmolenko 6, Antonio 6 (Perez 65,6), Anderson 7 (Snodgrass 74,7).

Substitutes not used: Adrian, Cresswell, Ogbonna, Fredericks.

CHELSEA (4-3-3): Arrizabalaga 7; Azpilicueta 6, Rudiger 7 (Cahill 69, 6), Luiz 5, Alonso 5; Kante 7, Jorginho 7, Kovacic 6 (Barkley 79); Willian 6, Giroud 5 Morata 65,5), Hazard 6.

Substitutes not used: Caballero, Fabregas, Moses, Zappacosta.

Referee: M Dean 7

Talking point - Blues feel Pedro’s absence

The Spain international missed out on the trip to the London Stadium, after injuring his shoulder in Thursday’s victory at PAOK Salonika, but yesterday’s display only reinforced Sarri’s desire to get Pedro back fit, before next Saturday’s meeting with Liverpool.

The 31-year-old has been a prominent figure in Chelsea’s impressive start. The winger has never failed to make an eye-catching contribution and his three goals are a mark of his impact.

So far, Sarri has interchanged Pedro with Willian and the competition has kept both players on their toes. The Brazilian, though, had a decidedly off-day at West Ham, underlining his teammate’s more consistent efforts in recent weeks.

Sarri is in no doubt about the value of a fully fit Pedro, insisting the player offers something different to the other wide players in his squad.

“Pedro, for us, is very important, because he is the best player we have with movement without the ball,” said the Chelsea head coach.

“So, in this moment of the season, Pedro is a very important player. We are trying to have him at the end of the week, but I don’t know at the moment.”

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