This was Graham Potter finding out what a broken club really 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 one young fan mounting a solo pitch invasion after being driven to despair by his side’s inability to defend set pieces. It is a new £15m goalkeeper who cannot catch crosses and, as much as Potter will plead for calm, it is that the only positive for West Ham was Chelsea pretty much declaring after going 5-1 up with over half an hour to play.
Chelsea had run through at will, cutting West Ham’s execrable back five to shreds, João Pedro and Estêvão Willian playing a different sport from every individual in claret and blue. Whatever the gulf in class, though, there can be no excuse for a performance so lacking in heart and a team so incapable of doing the basics.
There is no hiding place for Potter, who has taken fewer points from his first 10 home games in the Premier League than any manager in West Ham’s history. He is already under pressure, already facing suggestions that he is in trouble after eight months in the job, although there is the awkward question of whether he is more symptom than cause. After all, the sense that Potter is the wrong fit at a club who tend to feed off emotion should not overlook the fact that this collapse owes much to years of West Ham’s owners making one bad decision after another on and off the pitch.
