Antonio Conte will start his managerial tenure on 15th when his team welcomes West Ham United for the first Monday Night Football match. After a disastrous last season, where Chelsea recorded the worst title defense in the history of the Premier League. The initial struggle resulted in the sacking of Jose Mourinho last year but the arrival of Guus Hiddink did steady the ship somewhat. Conte will be hoping to bring in that solidity into the team that was missed so dearly last season. Chelsea enjoyed a mixed preseason, starting with a shock defeat to Rapid Vienna accompanied by a tight game against Real Madrid, followed by victories over RZ Pellets, Liverpool, AC Milan and Werder Bremen.
West Ham didn’t have a thoroughly enjoyable pre-season, managing just one victory over Karlsruher SC (3-0) alongside 2-2 draws with FC Slovacko and the Carolina Railhawks while going down to defeats against Rubin Kazan (3-0), the Seattle Sounders (3-0) and Juventus (3-2) in the Betway Cup. The Hammers did beat NK Domzale over two legs in the Europa League third qualifying round to set up a play-off tie against last season’s adversaries Astra Giurgiu later this month.
West Ham’s record against the Blues isn’t pretty, with the West London side winning 22 and losing just 11 of their top-flight fixtures against their East London neighbours. But, Slaven Bilic’s side did have the last laugh against Chelsea last season, winning 2-1 at Upton Park last October and drawing 2-2 in the reverse fixture.
Conte has an almost fully fit squad to choose from except Kurt Zouma, who is out with a long-term knee injury sustained earlier in the year. However, Bertrand Traore will miss the match after the 20-year-old sealed a season-long loan move to Ajax.
Bilic has been fairly active this transfer window and will have several new players to choose from against Chelsea, including Andre Ayew, Sofiane Feghouli, Havard Nordtveit, Gokhan Tore and Arthur Masuaku. The two players who will be missing this match will be Aaron Cresswell who will be out for a longish while with a knee ligament injury and Manuel Lanzini who suffered a similar injury but will return in a shorter time.
Chelsea predicted line-up: Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Kante, Fabregas, Willian, Oscar, Hazard and Costa.
West Ham predicted line-up: Adrian, Antonio, Reid, Ogbonna, Byram, Kouyate, Nordtveit, Feghouli, Noble, Payet and Carroll.
Predicted Score – West Ham – Chelsea: 1-2
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