Chelsea began the new year with a convincing 3-1 away win over West Ham United at the Boleyn Ground on Monday, taking the lead on 24 minutes as Frank Lampard came back to haunt his old club by riffling a drive into the top left-hand corner of the net as the Hammers’ defensive frailties were exposed.
The Blues were caught cold at the start of the second half as Marlon Harewood raced into the penalty box and hit his effort at Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech, but fortunately for West Ham, this helped deflect the ball into the back of the net.
On what turned out to be a master stroke by Blues boss Jose Mourinho on 59 minutes, he switched Damien Duff for Hernan Crespo, who responded 60 seconds later by giving Chelsea the lead back when the Italian striker capitalised on the Hammers slack marking by charging into the area and rounding West Ham goalkeeper Roy Carroll before tapping the ball into the back of the goal.
On 79 minutes, Didier Drogba completed the victory with clinical finishing as his fierce low drive flew past Carroll’s despairing dive into the bottom left-hand corner.
Counting the cost of injuries to both Mickael Essien and Hernan Crespo during the match, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho refused to shoulder any blame as he commented: ”Hernan is injured, but he can walk. Essien is injured, but he can’t walk, but we have to wait for scans and X-rays for this stuff, which the medical department will be responsible for.”
Despite the injury to Crespo, Mourinho took the positive out of his immediate impact as a substitute: ”I think we can change the game in half an hour, not in 70 seconds. I was waiting to make an impact in the game, because we changed the way of play; we played two strikers through the middle, we made it different and difficult for the opponent, but I would not expect to do it on 70 seconds.”
West Ham manager Alan Pardew was in a reflective mood afterwards, as he commented: ”It was a tough call for us. Because of the amount of games, and the smallness of our squad was a problem for us today, we had to field players that weren’t at their full capacity, but having said that, they astounded me with their energy.”