April 24, (THEWILL) –Â On Sunday, Christian Pulisic rescued with a last-minute goal at Stamford Bridge against a 10-man West Ham for a result that keeps them in third position in the English Premier League.
The visiting Hammers appeared to be on track to claim at least a point, having survived a dreadful late Jorginho penalty that saw the otherwise excellent Craig Dawson sent off. But, just as the clock was about to strike stoppage time, Pulisic stroked in a Marcos Alonso cross.
With one eye on Thursday’s Europa League semi-final first leg, David Moyes opted for some rotation and a cautious approach. But they were right in it in the first 20 minutes, virtually punishing Chelsea for individual mistakes in possession.
For more than 50 minutes, the Blues were obviously deflated. The club is still unable to get past the continued restrictions on ticket sales as part of the UK government’s sanctions against exiting owner Roman Abramovich and it limits the supporters they can get into the grounds. Recent poor results appeared to be weighing them down as well.
Andriy Yarmolenko flashed one across the face of goal after half an hour. He could have been better off passing the ball to Said Benrahma, who was approaching it from a different direction.
By the halftime break, neither team had managed a shot on goal. West Ham were content to keep Chelsea at bay and let them play in front of them. Thomas Tuchel’s team lacked creativity, and Mason Mount, Kai Havertz, and Timo Werner might as well not have been on the field at that point.
The second half went off similarly until Chelsea began to ramp up the pace. Dawson’s flying block halted a Werner volley in its tracks, and the centre-back also denied two more attempts in the run-up to the hour mark.
Fabianski was quickly called into action, first to gratefully clutch a deflected attempt that threatened to soar over his head, and then to safely parry a Trevoh Chalobah drive. Before Fabianski closed down Werner on the rebound, Dawson produced another tremendous block, this time preventing Mount from pulling the trigger.
Werner could not produce enough power on his subsequent close-range attempt to beat Fabianski after Dawson finally missed a defensive header.
With 15 minutes remaining, Tuchel made a lineup change, bringing in Romelu Lukaku, Christian Pulisic, and Hakim Ziyech to reinvigorate Chelsea’s offence.
Lukaku then successfully rolled Dawson in the final stages and when he was hauled back by the West Ham defender, referee Michael Oliver produced a red card after consulting the pitchside monitor.
But it was Pulisic who won it instead, after Jorginho’s poor penalty, which was easily saved by Fabianski.
Chelsea finally broke their three-game losing streak at home and tightened their hold on third place, opening up a five-point gap over Arsenal, with a trip to Manchester United on Thursday up next for the Blues. Meanwhile, West Ham are still in seventh place and will focus on the Europa League semi-finals against Frankfurt in midweek.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
