This was Graham Potter finding out what a broken club looks like. It is the London Stadium emptying out long before full-time, patience worn thin by the latest in a long line of humiliations. It is fans reacting with sarcastic applause when your new £15m goalkeeper saves a shot with the game already dead and, perhaps more than anything, it is one poor lad mounting a solo pitch invasion after seeing Chelsea go 5-1 up thanks to West Ham’s latest failure to defend a set-piece.
Potter, whose job is surely under threat now, left Chelsea bruised by the experience but this was something else.
West Ham, who have conceded eight goals in their first two matches, are a shambles. They are massive relegation candidates and had no way of coping with the quality of Chelsea’s depth, which was summed up by the 18-year-old Brazilian teenager Estêvão Willian rising to the occasion on his first start after Cole Palmer pulled out of the game just before kick-off.
The theory that fatigue will be one of the biggest challenges for Chelsea to overcome after their extended summer in the US was given further strength when they lost Palmer to injury during the warm-up. Enzo Maresca was forced to rejig his attack, the introduction of Estêvão on the right seeing João Pedro redeployed as a No 10 and Pedro Neto moved to the left, and the late alterations initially had West Ham thinking that their luck was about to turn after their dreadful performance at Sunderland on the opening weekend.
