GOAL! West Ham 0-1 Chelsea (4th Jackson)

Boom! Chelsea take a quick free kick while West Ham are asleep. Jackson is played in by Sancho on the left and despite the tight angle, similar to that of Kudus just before, he moves into the box and shoots between the goalkeeper’s legs. Chelsea lead.

4 minutes Kudus, playing on the right, gets the first chance of the game. He finds space in the box but has to shoot from an angle with his right foot and the ball goes straight at the goalkeeper. But then at the other end…

3 minutes Chelsea today in white shirts, white shorts and blue socks. Think Italian away kits. They enjoy their first possession before Cole Palmer is caught. He gets back to his feet though.

1 minute Paqueta plays the ball back for West Ham and the game begins. The home crowd roars loudly.

Both sides are outside. It seems to be a fairly pleasant day in East London and the pitch looks great.

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca, who spent almost two years as an assistant at West Ham, explained his decision to let Sancho play from the start as follows: “It wasn’t easy because we have more players. But we chose Jadon and hope it’s the right decision.”

The inclusion of Summerville in the West Ham team is interesting. On the other hand, I just heard this from a mate (who is in a pub in Newport on the way to the Leeds v Cardiff game; Michael Jackson, an American flag and Laurel & Hardy on the wall): “Hmmm. I think his level is maybe Championship. I really like him but he has a certain way of playing. He cuts in from the left and shoots. He never goes the other way – out wide. Teams saw through him towards the end of last season.”

In this strange world we live in, I was sent an AI prediction of the game by Sportscasting. That’s apparently what’s happening. If any of that happens, you have permission to freak out. On the other hand, it seems kind of reasonable.

• Nicolas Jackson opens the scoring

• Edson Alvarez equalizes for West Ham with a stunning long-range shot

• Chelsea wins with Christopher Nkunku

TNT has Joe Cole on the sidelines which seems like a good idea considering he has proven his refined skills at both clubs. Cole, a good talker, says Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has the “toughest job in the Premier League”. He fears Chelsea is being run purely on a business level.

Chelsea are the second-best goalscorers in the Premier League this season with eight goals. That’s just one goal less than Erling Haaland. Not bad, right? Thanks to their good goal-scoring performance in the 6-2 win at Wolves, they jump into second place with a win by two or more goals today. A win would see the Hammers level with Chelsea and lift the hosts from 14th to 9th.

West Ham’s women’s team is also in action which is a bit stupid if you actually support the men and want to see both. Who came up with this plan? TV, I know. You can watch the WSL clash – Man Utd against West Ham – here. Emillia Hawkins will guide you through it. It starts at 12pm.

So it is Jadon Sancho’s first start for Chelsea. He did well as a substitute at Bournemouth, so Enzo Maresca believes the winger is worth using from the start.

Enzo Fernandez returns to midfield while Tosin makes his first top-flight start in Chelsea’s defence. Renato Veiga, Pedro Neto and Axel Disasi are all on the bench.

There is also the debut of a winger for West Ham as new signing Crysenscio Summerville gets the nod. Lucas Paqueta returns as expected, while Tomas Soucek and Michail Antonio are the two left out of the starting line-up for last week’s 1-1 draw at Fulham.

About the team

We got to know the two teams through beautiful pictures from social media…

preamble