West Ham create unwanted history as pressure piles on Julen Lopetegui with Chelsea defeat
Today at 09:33 AM
Manager Julen Lopetegui has now made a historically poor start at West Ham as they fell to a 3-0 home defeat against Chelsea.
Nicolas Jackson scored two goals in the opening 18 minutes for the Blues before assisting Cole Palmer early on in the second-half.
Lopetegui once again struggled to get a tune out of his side and will be left wondering how he can finally make them click.
West Ham were lacklustre in their defending for all of the goals and have now made unwanted history from their latest result.
The Hammers, who were denied a penalty and saw a goal ruled out for offside, have lost their opening three home games of a league season for the first time ever.
Aston Villa beat them 2-1 on the opening weekend of the campaign and then Manchester City won 3-1 at the London Stadium two weeks later.
Now Chelsea have been able to travel to east London and pick up all three points, with West Ham now winless in three league games.
Their only Premier League victory so far this season came towards the end of August when they won 2-0 away at Crystal Palace.
Just four points in five league games have come after a summer transfer window in which they spent around £121million.
Fans may begin to ask questions over Lopetegui, who looked despondent when Palmer scored Chelsea’s third, just 68 seconds after the restart.
There were also boos from the home crowd when he substituted Crysencio Summerville on 54 minutes.
When asked about pressure piling on the new West Ham manager, ex-Hammers striker Dean Ashton told talkSPORT: "There is a change of style Lopetegui is trying to implement and you can just see that they're not ready for it, or they haven't done enough work on it.
"West Ham supporters want to see a difference and it looks like Lopetegui is trying to implement a new system, but the players just haven't got it yet.
"They're trying to keep the ball a bit more but they look way more open than a David Moyes side.
"So actually you haven’t yet got the scintillating football and you've lost the defensive solidity David Moyes could bring because of the way they would sit in and hit on the counter-attack.
"Ultimately for West Ham, in my opinion, it was a strange appointment – it was.
"When you're looking at a reason to get rid of David Moyes it would be the style and looking to move away from that and be more attacking – but then Lopetegui was not that person.
"If you look at the way he played at his previous clubs, that was never going to be a massive change – it wasn't! He was always a defence-first coach.
"There was a lot of promise around the club after the change of manager and the summer they had, with the signings they made, but they haven't delivered so far.
"They were second best against Fulham who probably deserved to win that game, Crystal Palace were better for most of the game where West Ham won with two breakaway goals and they were second best in the EFL Cup against Bournemouth and yet managed to win 1-0.
"There's a lot of improvement to be made purely on performance levels, even before you talk about results."
West Ham now host Carabao Cup holders Liverpool in the third round on Wednesday.
Chelsea, on the other hand, have followed up their late win against Bournemouth last weekend with a third league win from five.
Jackson has reached four goals and two assists in all competitions so far this season and Palmer now has two goals and four assists.
Enzo Maresca’s side sit second in the Premier League table with ten points, sitting just two behind leaders City.
