Silva and Abraham hands Chelsea a derby win
1 min read
Chelsea returned to winning ways in the last Premier League game before Christmas courtesy of Thiago Silva’s early header and two predatory finishes from Tammy Abraham late on.
The result and clean sheet proved the perfect riposte to the losses at Goodison Park and Molineux, and although their performance didn’t always hit the heights of recent home games, the Blues showed defensive determination to keep a lively West Ham side at bay before applying the killer touches in the final quarter-of-an-hour.
It was Thiago Silva who gave Chelsea a 10th-minute lead with a thumping header as they again made the most of a set-piece. The Hammers fought their way back into the contest and while they did look the more threatening side for good spells of both halves, Edouard Mendy did not have a shot to save all evening.
Still, it was a relief when Abraham doubled Chelsea’s lead in the 78th minute, cleverly converting a Timo Werner shot, and the striker made it four league goals for the campaign with another close-range effort barely 100 seconds later.
The only blot was an injury to Ben Chilwell early on, which Frank Lampard will be hoping is not too serious. The Blues move up to fifth in the table ahead of a game at Arsenal on Saturday.
