Chelsea travel to play at West Ham United’s London Stadium for the very first time in an EFL Cup round of 16 clash. West Ham have not established themselves at their new home so you can hardly call it a fortress as they have only won two of the games they have played there. Not exactly a formidable home record. A fully firing Chelsea will hoping to take full advantage of the Hammers’ poor home record which has caused there to some significant unrest amongst sections of the spectators who in particular were involved in some ugly incidents involving Middlesbrough fans who the West Ham fans attacked as they boarded buses to leave the London Stadium during the recent game between the two sides.
It seems however that 2 home wins on the bounce, two 1-0 wins over Crystal Palace and Sunderland appear to have improved the mood in London Stadium and the team is on the up apparently. Regardless, Chelsea will certainly be going into the bear-pit and there has been a security operation of a military nature designed by the Police and authorities to ensure the safety of all fans and make sure that in this spicy London Derby Cup tie there are no repeats of previous incidents at London Stadium.
When asked about what a West Ham win over bitter rivals Chelsea could mean to the Hammers fans and the security and behaviour in the stands, as reported by the Telegraph West Ham boss Slaven Bilic had this to say,
“The fans are frustrated when we don’t win home games,” he said. “Then they start arguing with each other. If we’re talking about discipline in the stands, it didn’t help that we were not winning. We have to give everything to continue like this, and then everything will be better, including the security situation of the stadium.”
Considering West Ham have all kinds of injuries to their strikers with Andy Carroll and Andre Ayew amongst those injured and loan striker Simone Zaza adjusting slowly to Premier League life after moving from Italy it is surprising to see that the Hammers have the joint 3rd top scorer in the Premier League in Michail Antonio on 5 goals just 2 goals behind the Chelsea striker Diego Costa in 1st with 7 goals.
After the 2 recent stunning wins by Chelsea including the 4-0 demolition of Man United, the Blues are riding high as Antonio Conte has plenty of talent to choose from with his whole squad feeling good and hungry to play. We think that Chelsea will deal with the hostilities of the London Stadium without problems with Conte making a few changes but ultimately leading his in-form team to a 3-1 win.