In its best moment of the season, decisive and incontestable this Sunday against West Ham, Chelsea reaffirmed its European options, two points behind sixth place with as many games remaining, with a win started by Cole Palmer, extended to 3 -0 at half-time and rounded off in the second half.
It is only the Conference League, perhaps well below initial expectations, but also a precious reward just as the campaign began. The fight is open. There are three candidates for a single ticket: Newcastle has 56 points and Chelsea has 54, the same as Manchester United, which closes the penultimate day this Monday with its visit to Crystal Palace. Afterwards, only six points will remain at stake.
Meanwhile, the Palmer phenomenon is unstoppable. Only Erling Haaland surpasses him in the scoring chart in this ‘Premier’ campaign. The Manchester City giant, scorer of four goals this Saturday, has 25. The 21-year-old Chelsea midfielder, transferred from the Etihad for 45 million euros, has scored 21. His team in total has achieved 68.
It is the transcendence and ascendancy of the young English international in just two games, whose emergence in the current season is visible, with the merit that it represents within a team that, between its reconstruction under the direction of Mauricio Pochettino and the process that entails, has gone through irregularity throughout the season.
It still suffers from it, but it is more reliable. It is true that he has won only half of his last 12 games in the league competition, including this Sunday, as it is also true that he only lost one – the thunderous 5-0 against Arsenal. He has now won three of his most recent six, but his conclusive first half against West Ham reaffirms his turnaround.
In just over half an hour, he had definitively overwhelmed his opponent, who has only won one of his last nine league games, or three of the 17 most recent. His path is the opposite of Chelsea, who started the season badly, but he already feels much better, unleashed this Sunday towards the 1-0 victory scored by Palmer after a quarter of an hour, when he hit a rebound inside his opponent’s area. . The begining of everything.
Then, after half an hour, Conor Gallagher made it 2-0, with a cross volley inside the area after a rebound. Then, in the 35th minute, Madueke finished off alone a corner kick that Mudryk had taken and Thiago Silva had headed in to extend the difference to 3-0, without a single sign of reaction from West Ham, who hit the crossbar with 1-0. 0…
And he disappeared, until Bowen hit another right hand against the post that would have brought him back into the match. He gave another one, already in the second half.
The crossbar also prevented Gallagher from 4-0, even in the first half, but Nicolas Jackson did not do so at the beginning of the second, when Madueke gave him the fourth goal of the match, after a long pass from Chalobah and the umpteenth mismatch West Ham’s defense, which has long been disfigured in one of its virtues at the start of the championship. The former Villarreal striker has scored 15 goals in 41 games this season.
They are a better team than West Ham currently demonstrates, of which there was hardly any news about Lucas Paquetá, who retired injured in the 76th minute. Nor about Edson Álvarez, replaced at half-time by Ward Prowse, whose free kick was repelled by Petrovic with a great intervention. All capital players for a reduced team this Sunday for Chelsea, who still scored Nicolas Jackson’s 5-0 and still believes that Europe is possible. He has two days to prove it. It does not depend on itself.
– Datasheet:
5 – Chelsea: Petrovic; Chalobah (Taste, m. 83), Thiago Silva (Shots, m. 83), Badiashile, Cucurella; Moses Caicedo, Gallagher; Madueke (Casadei, m. 76), Palmer (Gilchrist, m. 89), Mudryk (Stones, m. 76); Nicholas Jackson.
0 – West Ham: Areola; Coufal, Zouma, Ogbonna, Emerson; Edson Alvarez (Ward Prowse, m. 46), Soucek; Bowen, Luke Package (Cresswell, m. 76), Kudus; Michael Anthony (English, m. 70).
Goles: 1-0, m. 15: Palmer. 2-0, m. 30: Gallagher. 3-0, m. 35: Madueke. 4-0, m. 47: Nicolas Jackson. 5-0, m. 80: Nicolas Jackson.
Referee: Andy Madley. He yellow carded the local Cucurella (m. 38) and the visitors Ogbonna (m. 34), Emerson (m. 45) and Lucas Paquetá (m. 47+).
Incidents: match corresponding to the thirty-sixth day of the Premier League, played at the Stamford Brigde stadium in front of around 40,000 spectators. EFE
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