West Ham Wins, Chelsea's Defense Record Falls

PHOTO via Instagram westham

JAKARTA - West Ham United shattered Chelsea's defensive record to pick up three points in the Premier League's matchday 15 which they won 3-2 at London's Olympic Stadium on Saturday.

The score made West Ham the first team to score more than one goal against Chelsea after 22 Premier League games since last season.

West Ham's goals were scored by Manuel Lanzini, Jarrod Bowen, and Arthur Masuaku, turning things around after Chelsea had twice taken the lead through Thiago Silva and Mason Mount.

Victory secures West Ham's place in the top four where they are fourth on 27 points, four ahead of Arsenal.

Meanwhile, Chelsea, who failed to add to their 33 points, are in danger of being overthrown from the top of the standings by Manchester City (32) or Liverpool (31) who only played later in the game, according to the Premier League's official website.

Thiago Silva opened the scoring for Chelsea, who had had a lot of control of the ball from the start, by jumping the highest in the box to head in from Mount's corner in the 28th minute.

As reported by Antara, West Ham almost gave an instant reply after following through with Vladimir Coufal's volley that broke through the crowd of players, but the ball was still saved by goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.

In the 38th minute, Jorginho, who made another blunder last week, made another mistake when his feedback was too short and Mendy brought down Jarrod Bowen in the box, so referee Andre Marriner immediately pointed to the spot.

The penalty kick was not wasted by Lanzini who became the executioner and calmly tricked Mendy to make it level in the 40th minute.

However, a minute before halftime Chelsea managed to restore their advantage using a quick counter-attack which was ended by Mount's volley welcoming Hakim Ziyech's long ball.

Halfway down in a state behind, West Ham immediately tried to hit back at his visitors in the second half and the result in the 56th minute Bowen managed to make the position back at 2-2.

Starting from the action of Michail Antonio winning an aerial duel on the edge of the Chelsea penalty box, the ball fell in front of Bowen who immediately fired hard past Andreas Christensen's feet and nestled into the visitors' goal.

Chelsea was on the verge of restoring their lead again when Reece James' cross created chaos in front of West Ham, but Romelu Lukaku missed a clear finish and a wild ball was saved by goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski.

In the 75th minute, West Ham created another chance when Antonio pulled out a cross that was too sharp and failed to reach Bowen.

Both teams continued to search for the winning goal and it was West Ham who managed to find it just three minutes from time when Masuaku fired in a cross that was too sharp and ended up beating Mendy and sinking into the Chelsea goal.

Chelsea tried to get up, but West Ham was able to reduce the waves of the visitors' attacks to keep the 3-2 score going until the final whistle sounded.

In their next match, West Ham will travel to Turf Moor against Burnley on Sunday (12/12) next week, a day after Chelsea host Leeds United at Stamford Bridge.

Before that, both teams will first appear in Europe when Chelsea visit Russia against Zenit St. Petersburg in the final match of Group H of the Champions League on Wednesday (8/12) and a day later West Ham hosted Dinamo Zagreb in London to close out Group H of the Europa League.