West Ham vs Chelsea Preview, Team News, Likely Line-Ups, Key Man & Predicted Score

Chelsea travel across London to take on West Ham at Upton Park on Saturday evening looking to close the gap at the top of the league.

The Blues head into the weekend action sitting fourth in the Premier League following a 2-2 draw with West Brom at Stamford Bridge before the international break.

The home side needed a controversial injury-time penalty to salvage a point and the draw came off the back of a 2-0 league defeat to Newcastle, so Jose Mourinho will be looking to get his side back to winning ways this weekend.

However, he will be hoping his side can do better than they fared last season at Upton Park, where the Hammers came from a goal down to earn a 2-1 victory thanks to second half goals from Carlton Cole and Mahamed Diame.

The west Londoners will be confident of getting a more positive result this time around as Sam Allardyce’s men are struggling at the wrong end of the table and head into the game sitting 16th, level on points with 18th-placed Fulham, following last weeks 3-1 loss to Norwich.

Team News

West Ham are sweating on the fitness of defender Razvan Rat after he picked up a hamstring injury while away with Romania this week. George McCartney is back in training after recovering from a knee injury and could come straight back in if Rat is ruled out.

Joey O’Brien and James Collins are likely to be fit despite carrying slight hamstring injuries, but Andy Carroll, Mladen Petric, Matthew Taylor and Alou Diarra are all out.

Defender Winston Reid is expected to be sidelined for at least three months after undergoing surgery on an ankle injury.

Chelsea will once again have to make-do without the services of Fernando Torres. The striker is back in training following an adductor injury that’s kept him out of recent games, but Mourinho has confirmed the West Ham clash will come too soon for the Spaniard.

With Torres out, Samuel Eto’o is expected to be given the nod up front while Juan Mata may once again have to make do with a place on the bench, with Mourinho likely to stick with the likes of Oscar, Eden Hazard and Andre Schurrle in attack.

There is better news on the fitness of Ashley Cole with the defender being passed fit to play despite being forced off against Germany on Tuesday night while representing England. Cesar Azpilicueta is likely to drop out.

 

Likely Line-Ups

Key Man

Oscar: The Brazilian is going to play an important role in this game as he, along with Eden Hazard, are going to be relied upon as Chelsea’s main creators. West Ham are a hard working outfit and the likes of Noble will not be giving the Blues attacker much room to work with, so it’s important Oscar uses the ball wisely when he finds time to play.

Predicted Score

West Ham 0-2 Chelsea: The Hammers have little goal threat and Chelsea should have too much for them to handle at the back.

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