Paquetá’s rocket offers a false dawn as West Ham unravel from set pieces and patience snaps

For nine minutes it felt like a reset. Lucas Paquetá’s vicious, swerving strike put West Ham 1-0 up and jolted the London Stadium to life in their first home game of the season. But Chelsea’s reply was ruthless and, worse for Graham Potter, familiar: a near‑post corner flicked on allowed João Pedro to nod in, Pedro Neto volleyed the visitors in front, and Estêvão Willian sliced through the left to tee up Enzo Fernández for 3-1 before the break.

After half-time the same failings multiplied. Mads Hermansen flapped at a corner and Moisés Caicedo pounced; another corner minutes later ended with Trevoh Chalobah making it 5-1. By then the stands were emptying, boos and irony bleeding into the air on a day that left the Hammers with eight goals conceded from two league games. A VAR call had earlier scrubbed out a potential lifeline when Jean‑Clair Todibo was marginally offside before crossing for Niclas Füllkrug, but this was a defeat shaped by basics going badly wrong.

A start to build on, squandered in moments

Potter’s side sprang into a lead in the sixth minute, fed by Estêvão’s loose backheel and finished by Paquetá’s searing 25‑yard drive. It was the exact jolt a raw team needed after Sunderland — an early goal, a crowd engaged, the sense of a reset taking hold.

Yet even that platform proved fragile. West Ham thought they had another moment when Todibo crossed for Füllkrug to finish, only for VAR to intervene for a marginal offside against the defender before his delivery. It was the last meaningful moment that went West Ham’s way; the next big actions belonged to Chelsea.

Where the game was lost: defending the box

Chelsea equalised from a corner that never should have reached its second phase, a Neto delivery flicked on at the near post by the diminutive Marc Cucurella for João Pedro to head in. Against a back five with three centre-backs, that detail stung. From there, organisation disintegrated at set pieces: two second‑half corners brought two more goals.

Hermansen endured a chastening home debut under high balls. He failed to claim the cross that Caicedo turned in for 4-1, then another corner sequence led to Chalobah’s fifth minutes later. The sequence fed the stadium’s exodus around the hour — and the inevitable post‑match scrutiny of West Ham’s set‑piece structure and collective responsibility.

An anxious debut and a frayed defensive unit

As damaging as the goalkeeping moments were, the sources point to wider culpability. Max Kilman, Jean‑Clair Todibo and Nayef Aguerd looked uncertain in the heart of a back five, while midfielders James Ward‑Prowse and Tomáš Souček were overrun by Fernández and Caicedo. One first‑half passage, when Chelsea’s midfield duo exchanged a string of short passes without pressure, encapsulated the lack of bite.

The mood turned unforgiving. By stoppage time, one of the loudest cheers came when Hermansen finally held a cross. That isolated moment of relief could not disguise a broader problem: West Ham did not defend their box with conviction, and the visitors repeatedly profited from it.

The mood boils over: exodus, chants and anger

The fourth and fifth goals arrived within minutes, and with them a mass departure. Chelsea’s away end even taunted their former manager with “there’s only one Graham Potter.” Cameras picked out majority shareholder David Sullivan as boos cascaded; frustration with recruitment and direction bubbled long before full time.

It turned messy, too, with a brief pitch invasion by a young supporter and an older fan confronting stewards, as reported. The anger was real, but so was the apathy that followed as the stadium thinned out. By the final whistle, the most stinging emotion was resignation.

Potter and Bowen demand accountability

Potter did not mask the scale of the issues. “Bitterly disappointed… too cheap against a top team… we have to improve a lot,” he said, adding that he is responsible for extracting more from the group. The admission arrived alongside the numbers that now shadow him: fewer points from his first 10 home league games than any West Ham manager, and six home matches without a win.

Jarrod Bowen, newly captain, was blunter. “Everyone has to look in the mirror,” he told Sky Sports, lamenting failures in basic football and promising hard conversations. He urged a response in the immediate fixtures: a cup tie on Tuesday, then a trip to Nottingham Forest before the international break — a “long dark place” if they go into it on the back of another defeat.

What must change next

The defensive structure at set pieces is the first emergency. As Jamie Redknapp put it, the defending was “as bad as it gets,” calling for multiple reinforcements and even hinting that a goalkeeping change could be needed if confidence does not return. Those are harsh assessments, but in keeping with the performance: West Ham failed to contest their six-yard box with the aggression a derby demands.

Even allowing for a gifted Chelsea, this was self‑inflicted. Eight conceded in two games is a brutal headline; the task now is to restore basics, recover belief in the home arena and reconnect with a support that has grown weary of promises. The reaction over the next two matches will say much about where this season is headed.