This was one of those afternoons when, for Chelsea and Thomas Tuchel, any win would do. They duly achieved this despite a labored performance and now that their extravagant transfer business is complete, they can feel justified in plugging the line that starts the season here.
The slower burn of affairs ended almost in chaos and with West Ham fuming at the disallowance of what looked like a perfectly good equalizer from Maxwel Cornet.
Kai Havertz had just put Chelsea ahead, curling a smart volley at the near post after a fine cross from fellow substitute Ben Chilwell, when Édouard Mendy dived to clear at the feet of Jarrod Bowen. The goalkeeper was only able to punch in the path of Cornet, who finished forcefully.
West Ham celebrated but their joy was cut short when Andrew Madley was called to their monitor. The VAR had correctly detected that in his follow-up Bowen clipped Mendy, but the contact was light and, in any case, the ball had already been launched several meters and Mendy’s chances of correcting his mistake were slim.
The goal looked good, even when slowed to the kind of speed that warps too many decisions, but Madley opted to score and West Ham were rightly incensed.
“It was a ridiculously bad decision,” said David Moyes, who went to see Madley afterwards. “I don’t want an explanation from them, as it would have been difficult to give. I don’t think anyone can justify it.”
Moyes saved most of his anger for Jarred Gillett, the VAR official. “The sad thing is, that’s the level of our elite refereeing at the moment,” he said. “I lost faith in them after that.
I’m more ashamed of the VAR guy than the referee, because that tells me he’s someone who doesn’t understand football and probably shouldn’t be around if that’s enough to send the referee to the screen” .
Unsurprisingly, Tuchel disagrees. “My view is very clear, it’s a foul,” he said, before explaining the injustice Chelsea suffered three weeks ago against Spurs.
He also said Mendy, who was sidelined after the incident and accused by Moyes of acting up, was in considerable pain and would be a doubt for Tuesday’s Champions League tie against Dinamo Zagreb .
Jarrod Bowen challenges Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy moments before Maxwel Cornet scores a goal which is later disallowed.
Before the outrage a football match had ensued, though not much of one until Michael Antonio took advantage of another Mendy rickety to score.
West Ham had begun to come out of their shells after containing Chelsea somewhat comfortably for an hour. Mendy saved Bowen’s volley but headed home the resulting corner after the ball had gone onto Lucas Paquetá’s shoulder. Declan Rice put it back to Antonio and, given the poor performance of his performance, it was little surprise that Chelsea were caught.
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Tuchel had told them to toughen up after the Southampton defeat, but that seemed to come at the expense of anything gutsy or instinctive. Raheem Sterling did his best to provide an element of surprise, but the main talking point before the break was the evident composure, albeit under rare scrutiny, of £75m signing Wesley Fofana on his debut.
Watching from the executive seats, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang must have wondered where the chances he likes to gobble up could come from. When Chelsea finally created one, the source was unexpected. Chilwell had just been introduced alongside Havertz when he won a header from Thiago Silva’s diagonal ball and reacted strongly to beat an unconvincing Lukasz Fabianski.
There had been no reason for Fabianski to get his gloves dirty earlier, but just after heading against the post, Cornet was back in the net after a decisive combination from Chelsea’s cavalry.
“We wanted to restart the season and we did that today,” said Tuchel, who believed his players had allowed West Ham to delay proceedings too easily earlier.
By the end, the visitors were fully fired up. “This is up there with the worst VAR decisions since it came into play. Shambles,” Declan Rice tweeted, still to calm down an hour after the whistle. Chelsea didn’t care.