The second London Derby of the 2023/24 Premier League season is upon us and this time, it is West Ham United playing host to Chelsea.
The battle of East vs West has long persisted, especially with respect to some players who played for both sides of the divide. Historically, however, Chelsea have had the upper hand, dealing 54 defeats to West Ham from 120 matches played in all competitions to date.
In the Premier League, Chelsea’s last defeat at the hands of West Ham was in December 2021 at the London Stadium, home of the bubble-blowing support of the Hammers. Both teams also played out a 1-1- draw at the London Stadium last season as they both struggled to end their season on a high. That is where West Ham United vs Chelsea will meet for the first time in the 2023/24 season.
It will be a high-stakes game for both sides who have the sour memory of the 2022/23 season to put behind them.
Chelsea has shown promise in their opening fixture, taking on the (depleted) might of Liverpool with a brand new squad and keeping hold of a point, and West Ham going away to AFC Bournemouth without a big name in Declan Rice and coming away with a point.
Both teams have their first three points up for grabs in matchday 2 against each other. For Chelsea manager, Mauricio Pochettino, it is even more dire because the club he manages is not known for their patience. A failure to get the ball up and rolling will be a blight on his record which could lead to his sack in record time.
For David Moyes on the other hand, West Ham’s administration seems to be comfortable enough with him and can allow him the benefit of the doubt for as long as they decide. The fans, however, will not be pleased as the memories of last season remain fresh in their minds.
For neutral fans, they will hope to relive the days when West Ham United vs Chelsea was a Premier League classic. End-to-end football, fast transitions, loud fans in the stadiums, incredible goals from long range and animated coaches on the touchline will be the expectation for the Sunday 20 August 2023 clash in East London.
Keep on reading to find out more about the team news, potential lineups, match information and match prediction.
Match Tickets
West Ham United vs Chelsea tickets have gone up on sale on the websites of both teams. They are expecting massive patronage from their fans which will lead to the tickets getting sold out in no time.
Ticket reselling platforms will come to the fore in order to help fans who cannot attend matches sell their tickets to fans who are in need of the tickets.
Chelsea fans, especially, will be desperate to get tickets to the game after their team’s showing against Liverpool. The Reds took home a point but it was a fight to the finish and the Blues’ players got a standing ovation for an entertaining curtain raiser.
West Ham fans will also be looking forward to seeing if Moyes has managed to improve the team enough to rack up results the way they did a few seasons ago, which got them challenging for the top four.
West Ham was seen as one of the teams that would disrupt the status quo until last season when they fell off the high pedestal set for them by the fans of the club and neutrals who thought Moyes was up to something.
A good home game against Chelsea will do well to shift the narrative back in their favour and for this reason, West Ham tickets will sell out as quickly as they are uploaded on the website
As stated earlier, the match will take place at the London Stadium on Sunday 20 August 2023 at 4:30 PM. It will be broadcast live on Sky Sports and all other Premier League broadcast partners around the world.
Team news
The biggest point to note is that the summer transfer window is still on.
West Ham are in talks to sign Harry Maguire and Scott McTominay from Manchester United, with reports claiming that both deals are close to completion. This means that barring any last-minute decisions, the Hammers will have two new players in time to face Chelsea.
The Blues, on the other hand, have been reported to be done with the negotiations for their Moises Caicedo transfer pursuit because Brighton and Hove Albion have accepted the figures presented to them. Chelsea are also reportedly set to win the battle for Romeo Lavia, dealing a double blow to their opening-day opponents Liverpool who wanted both Caicedo and Lavia.
Outside these transfer dealings, the Blues will hope that the discomfort shown by new captain Reece James is only due to tiredness as Pochettino claimed after the Liverpool match.
The 51-year-old manager told journalists: “Because he was tired. The first thing we did when we arrived was to assess the players from the past and he was injured three or four months and pre-season was tough for him. Of course, we didn’t want to take any risk. We wanted to keep our way a little bit.”
Moyes, meanwhile, has no big injury concerns ahead of Chelsea’s visit.
Lineups
With Kepa Arrizabalaga gone on loan to Real Madrid, Robert Sanchez is now Chelsea’s number 1. The Spaniard replaces his compatriot and will keep his place in the team from the Liverpool game.
Pochettino likes to rotate between a 4-3-3 and a 3-4-3 formation but with the players he has on hand at Chelsea, he may be considering sticking to the 3-4-3 formation he used against Liverpool.
Youngster Carney Chukwuemeka may lose his starting berth, however, which will be the most likely change to the starting lineup. New signing Axel Disasi impressed – and scored – against Liverpool and will keep his place for that reason alongside Levi Colwill and veteran defender Thiago Silva.
Chelsea: Sanchez; Disasi, Silva, Colwill; James, Enzo, Gallagher, Chilwell; Sterling, Jackson, Mudryk
West Ham will be counting on the arrivals of Maguire and McTominay during the week to revamp their starting XI.
Maguire may find it difficult to displace Nayef Aguerd or Kurt Zouma in the Hammers’ defence and McTominay may find it hard to displace Tomáš Souček or Lucas Paqueta in the middle of the park.
They will both slowly be integrated into the team, however, and may just make it straight into the XI if they sign for the Hammers this week. This is because of the calibre of their next visitors to the London Stadium.
West Ham: Areola; Emerson, Aguerd, Zouma, Coufal; Paqueta, Souček; Benrahm, Fornals, Bowen; Antonio
Prediction
West Ham United have not lost at home to Chelsea since 2021. Before that, the last loss was in 2017.
Both losses were narrow losses (one-goal margin) and this shows that the Hammers do not go down easily to their more successful London counterparts.
The last time that West Ham also lost by a margin of two goals or more was in 2020. They have played five matches since then with narrow one-goal margin losses when they did.
The more significant results for this tie will be their recent home records against Chelsea which they will be looking to keep intact on Sunday 20 August 2023.
Chelsea will have more of the ball and create more chances. They will also have more shots at goal but will have to work on keeping West Ham’s chances limited because the Hammers tend to strike harder than they do in these ties.
The Blues will take home all three points in the end.
West Ham United 0-2 Chelsea.