Chelsea's retreat into the chasing pack continues apace. Rafael Benítez's side contrived to surrender a grip on this derby and end up overwhelmed and overrun at this venue for the first time in nine years, ensuring the disillusion that festers within the European champions gnaws away at them into another week. The winless league run has been extended to seven matches, their worst sequence since February 1995, yet this felt properly traumatic than any statistic.
It said much about the chaos in which the visitors are currently enveloped that all sides of the ground seemed to unite in a chorus of "You're getting sacked in the morning" aimed at Benítez as he stared grimly from his technical area. His team had been so dominant prior to the interval here that the contest should have been settled early, yet their utter disintegration in the latter stages was more indicative of fragility. West Ham swarmed all over them and, pushed back into their shells, Chelsea fell to pieces. By the end, this felt like a thrashing with all semblance lost of the defensive solidity Benítez hoped he had restored.
The goals that secured the locals' victory were scored late, an unmarked Mohamed Diamé thundering a shot from Carlton Cole's lay-off beyond Petr Cech four minutes from time to establish a lead. The substitute Modibo Maïga added a third in stoppage time after Ashley Cole surrendered possession with the visitors over-committed up-field. If there were justifiable complaints from Benítez over West Ham's equaliser, nodded in by Cole who had climbed above Branislav Ivanovic and had wrapped an arm around the Serb in the process, then his team's limp finish was more damning. They simply could not cope, with some in the visiting support duly unfurling a banner proclaiming: "Di Matteo Chelsea legend. FACT. Rafa Chelsea reject."
On this evidence, the change in manager has yet to have any real impact for all the clean sheets kept against Manchester City and Fulham. This had felt like an opportunity, a game against a team shorn of Andy Carroll whose knee injury, initially thought to be minor, will leave him sidelined well into the new year. Indeed, the first goal of Benítez's interim stewardship had been neatly constructed, Victor Moses' fine diagonal pass from the touchline slicing through the left side of West Ham's defence and liberating Fernando Torres beyond Winston Reid. The striker's pull-back was perfectly weighted for an unmarked Juan Mata to side-foot beyond Jussi Jaaskelainen and, for the first time in 11 hours and two minutes, Torres had been directly involved in a Chelsea goal.
More might have followed, Jaaskelainen denying Mata after Moses had deposited Guy Demel on the turf, and the Spaniard later striking the woodwork from distance. There was trickery down the flanks and pace on the counterattack, with West Ham heaving to stay in the contest, their midfield lost and Carroll's absence denying them a focal point up front.
Yet the failure to score a second proved pivotal and Sam Allardyce recognised the shortcomings. Diamé's introduction forced Ramires back and out of the contest, Matt Taylor's urgency also driving the visitors into retreat. Cole's equaliser felt illegal, but Chelsea had lost control already by then. In the end, they had been run ragged. Reported by guardian.co.uk 56 minutes ago. ~Chelsea Headlines on One News Page [United Kingdom]~
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