Chelsea vs. West Ham United – EPL, December 21, 2020

The EPL wraps up for Christmas on Monday with a London derby as Chelsea entertains West Ham at Stamford Bridge.

It is the Hammers who are going into the game in better spirits, but this could be a real cracker between representatives of west and east London.

Given Chelsea’s recent problems in seeing off the opposition and beating teams, I’m quite tempted to back West Ham to come away from Stamford Bridge with all three points on Monday. BetOnline doesn’t agree with me – but I think the odds for the away win look very tempting.

Chelsea should really have beaten Wolves by half time in the week and was left to rue its finishing as Pedro Neto stunned Frank Lampard’s side with an injury-time winner. That made it the first time Chelsea had lost back-to-back games this season, after falling to Everton at the weekend.

Hakim Ziyech missed both those games, and his creativity was conspicuously absent, as the Morocco international has looked very impressive since his move from Ajax. There is still plenty of talent in the Chelsea squad, of course. But it does sometimes seem to need a little coaxing.

West Ham is a more direct type of team, and David Moyes is finally starting to get a return for his effort, as his side has steadily climbed the table in the last month or so. With Michail Antonio out for the majority of recent games, there had been a worry that there would be no attacking thrust to the team. But the replacements have done just fine.

Even Sebastian Haller, who has largely disappointed since his big-money move last summer, has been weighing in with a few goals. The Ivory Coast international scored an absolute cracker against Crystal Palace on Wednesday to salvage a point and now has seven in just 15 starts. West Ham might be able to trouble this Chelsea team.

I’m not entirely convinced that Chelsea is as much of a better team than West Ham as the odds from BetOnline suggest. Timo Werner is an excellent striker but hasn’t scored for five games, and West Ham has the players to frustrate him further on Monday. It is a little bit of a gamble, but I’m going for the away win here to make the most of the odds.